CONTINENTAL DRIFT

BY JESSA DAZA & LUIS KIAN ROMANO

Continental drift describes one of the earliest ways
geologists thought continents moved over time. Today,
the theory of continental drift has been replaced by the
science of plate tectonics.
 Continental drift is the theory that the Earth’s continents have moved
over geologic time relative to each other, thus appearing to have drifted
across the ocean bed.

The theory of continental drift is most associated with the scientist Alfred
Wegener.

Wegener was convinced that all of Earth’s continents were once part of
an enormous, single landmass called Pangaea which means “all Earth”.
PANGAEA
EVIDENCES OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT
THEORY
1. Jigsaw fit between separate continents.
EVIDENCES OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT
THEORY
2. Same fossils of plants and animal were found
in two separate continent and nowhere else.
 EVIDENCES OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT
THEORY
Wegener proposed that the organisms had lived side by side, but that the
lands had moved apart after they were dead and fossilized. He suggested that
the organisms would not have been able to travel across the oceans.

• Fossils of the seed fern Glossopteris were too heavy to be carried so

far by wind.
• Mesosaurus was a swimming reptile but could only swim in fresh
water.
• Cynognathus and Lystrosauruswere land reptiles and were unable to
swim.
EVIDENCES OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT
THEORY
3. Mountain ranges
with the same rock
types, structures, and
ages are now on
opposite sides of the
Atlantic Ocean.

The Appalachians of
the eastern United States
and Canada, for example,
are just like mountain
ranges in eastern Greenland,
Ireland, Great Britain, and
Norway.
EVIDENCES OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT
THEORY
 EVIDENCES OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT
THEORY
4. Grooves and rock deposits left by ancient glaciers are found today on
different continents very close to the equator. This would indicate that the
glaciers either formed in the middle of the ocean and/or covered most of the
Earth.
Today glaciers only form on land and nearer the poles. Wegener thought
that the glaciers were centered over the southern land mass close to the South
Pole and the continents moved to their present positions later on.
 EVIDENCES OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT
THEORY
5. Coral reefs and coal-forming swamps are found in tropical and
subtropical environments, but ancient coal seams and coral reefs are found in
locations where it is much too cold today. Wegener suggested that these
creatures were alive in warm climate zones and that the fossils and coal later
had drifted to new locations on the continents.
Palm trees usually grows in tropical environment, but some of its fossil
were found in North Pole, an extremely cold place.
EVIDENCES OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT
THEORY
 Wegener’s idea seemed so outlandish at the time that he was ridiculed by

other scientists. To his colleagues, his greatest problem was that he had no

plausible mechanism for how the continents could move through the oceans.

Based on his polar experiences, Wegener suggested that the continents were

like icebreaking ships plowing through ice sheets. The continents moved by

centrifugal and tidal forces.

 Scientists at the time calculated that centrifugal and tidal forces were too

weak to move continents. When one scientist did calculations that assumed

that these forces were strong enough to move continents, his result was that if

Earth had such strong forces the planet would stop rotating in less than one

year. In addition, scientists also thought that the continents that had been

plowing through the ocean basins should be much more deformed than they

are.
 Mantle Convection
Wegener had many thoughts regarding what could be the driving force
behind continental drift. Another of Wegener’s colleagues, Arthur Holmes,
elaborated on Wegener’s idea that there is thermal convection in the mantle.
Thermal or mantle convection occurs as hot rock in the deep mantle
rises towards the Earth’s surface. This rock then spreads out and cools,
sinking back towards the core, where it can be heated again. This circulation
of rock through the mantle creates convection cells.
 In a convection cell, material deep beneath the surface is heated so that

its density is lowered and it rises. Near the surface it becomes cooler and

denser, so it sinks. Holmes thought this could be like a conveyor belt. Where

two adjacent convection cells rise to the surface, a continent could break

apart with pieces moving in opposite directions.

Continuous movement of molten materials in the Earth’s mantle results

to Seafloor Spreading.
 Seafloor spreading is a geologic process in which tectonic plates—
large slabs of Earth's lithosphere—split apart from each other.
 Seafloor spreading occurs at divergent plate boundaries. As tectonic
plates slowly move away from each other, heat from the mantle’s convection
currents makes the crust more plastic and less dense. The less-dense material
rises, often forming a mountain or elevated area of the seafloor.
Eventually, the crust cracks. Hot magma fueled by mantle convection
bubbles up to fill these fractures and spills onto the crust. This bubbled-up
magma is cooled by frigid seawater to form igneous rock. This rock (basalt)
becomes a new part of Earth’s crust.
 The newest, thinnest crust on Earth is located near the center of mid-
ocean ridge—the actual site of seafloor spreading. The age, density, and
thickness of oceanic crust increases with distance from the mid-ocean ridge.
Oceanic crust slowly moves away from mid-ocean ridges and sites of
seafloor spreading. As it moves, it becomes cooler, denser, and thicker.
Eventually, older oceanic crust encounters a tectonic boundary with
continental crust.
 Seafloor spreading is just one part of plate tectonics. Subduction is

another. Subduction happens where tectonic plates crash into each other

instead of spreading apart. At subduction zones, the edge of the denser plate

subducts, or slides, beneath the less-dense one. The denser lithospheric

material then melts back into the Earth's mantle.

Seafloor spreading creates new crust. Subduction destroys old crust. The

two forces roughly balance each other, so the shape and diameter of the

Earth remain constant.

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