CONTINENTS AND PLATE TECTONICS

CONTINENTAL DRIFT THEORY

From the known records of the history of science, it was Abraham Ortelius, a Dutch map maker, who first proposed such a possibility as early as 1596. Antonio Pellegrini drew a map showing the three continents together. However, it was Alfred Wegener—a German meteorologist who put forth a comprehensive argument in the form of “the continental drifttheory” in 1912. This was regarding the distribution of the oceans and the continents. According to Wegener, all the continents formed a single continental mass and mega ocean surrounded the same. The super continent was named PANGAEA, which meant all earth. The mega-ocean was called PANTHALASSA, meaning all water. He argued that, around 200 million years ago, the super continent, Pangaea, began to split. Pangaea first broke into two large continental masses as Laurasia and Gondwanaland forming the northern and southern components respectively. Subse-quently, Laurasia and Gondwanaland continued to break into various smaller continents that exist today. A variety of evidence was offered in support of the continental drift. Some of these are given below.

 

Evidence in Support of the Continental Drift

The Matching of Continents (Jig-Saw-Fit): The shorelines of Africa and South America facing each other have a remarkable and unmistakable match. It may be noted that a map produced using a computer programme to find the best fit of the Atlantic margin was presented by Bullard in 1964. It proved to be quite perfect. The match was tried at 1,000fathom line instead of the present shoreline.

Rocks of Same Age Across the Oceans: The radiometric dating methods developed in the recent period have facilitated correlating the rock formation from different continents acrossthe vast ocean. The belt of ancient rocks of 2,000 million years from Brazil coast matches with those from western Africa. The earliest marine deposits along the coastline of South America and Africa are of the Jurassic age. This suggests that the ocean did not exist prior to that time.

Tillite: It is the sedimentary rock formed out of deposits of glaciers. The Gondawana system of sediments from India is known to have its counter parts in six different landmasses of the Southern Hemisphere. At the base the system has thick tillite indicating extensive and prolonged glaciation. Counter parts of this succession are found in Africa, Falkland Island, Madagascar, Antarctica and Australia besides India. Overall resemblance of the Gondawana type sediments clearly demonstrates that these landmasses had remarkably similar histories. The glacial tillite provides unambiguous evidence of palaeoclimates and also of drifting of continents.

Placer Deposits: The occurrence of rich placer deposits of gold in the Ghana coast and the absolute absence of source rock in the region is an amazing fact. The gold bearing veins are in Brazil and it is obvious that the gold deposits of the Ghana are derived from the Brazil plateau when the two continents lay side by side.

Distribution of Fossils: When identical species of plants and animals adapted to living on land or in fresh water are found on either side of the marine barriers, a problem arises regarding accounting for such distribution. The observations that Lemurs occur in India, Madagascar and Africa led some to consider a contiguous landmass “Lemuria” linking these three landmasses. Mesosaurus was a small reptile adapted to shallow brackish water. The skeletons of these are found only in two localities : the Southern Cape province of South Africa and Iraver formations of Brazil. The two localities presently are 4,800 km apart with an ocean in between them.

 

Force for Drifting

Wegener suggested that the movement responsible for the drifting of the continents was caused by pole-fleeing force and tidal force. The polar-fleeing force relates to the rotation of the earth. You are aware of the fact that the earth is not a perfect sphere; it has a bulge at the equator. This bulge is due to the rotation of the earth. The second force that was suggested by Wegener—the tidal force—is due to the attraction of the moon and the sun that develops tides in oceanic waters. Wegener believed that these forces would become effective when applied over many million years. However, most of scholars considered these forces to be totally inadequate.

 

Post-Drift Studies

It is interesting to note that for continental drift, most of the evidence was collected from the continental areas in the form of distribution of flora and fauna or deposits like tillite. A number of discoveries during the post-war period added new information to geological literature. Particularly, the information collected from the ocean floor mapping provided new dimensions for the study of distribution of oceans and continents.

 

 

OCEAN FLOOR

Continental Margins

These form the transition between continental shores and deep-sea basins. They include continental shelf, continental slope, continental rise and deep-oceanic trenches. Of these, the deep-oceanic trenches are the areas which are of considerable interest in so far as the distribution of oceans and continents is concerned.

Abyssal Plains

These are extensive plains that lie between the continental margins and mid-oceanic ridges. The abyssal plains are the areas where the continental sediments that move beyond the margins get deposited.

Mid-Oceanic Ridges

This forms an interconnected chain of mountain system within the ocean. It is the longest mountain-chain on the surface of the earth though submerged under the oceanic waters. It is characterised by a central rift system at the crest, a fractionated plateau and flank zone all along its length. The rift system at the crest is the zone of intense volcanic activities.

 

 

PLATE TECTONICS

Since the advent of the concept of sea floor spreading, the interest in the problem of distribution of oceans and continents was revived. It was in 1967, McKenzie and Parker and also Morgan, independently collected the available ideas and came out with another concept termed Plate Tectonics. A tectonic plate (also called lithospheric plate) is a massive, irregularly-shaped slab of solid rock, generally composed of both continental and oceanic lithosphere. Plates move horizontally over the asthenosphere as rigid units. The lithosphere includes the crust and top mantle with its thickness range varying between 5-100 km in oceanic parts and about 200 km in the continental areas. A plate may be referred to as the continental plate or oceanic plate depending on which of the two occupy a larger portion of the plate. Pacific plate is largely an oceanic plate whereas the Eurasian plate may be called a continental plate. The theory of plate tectonics proposes that the earth’s lithosphere is divided into seven major and some minor plates. Young Fold Mountain ridges, trenches, and/or faults surround these major plates. The major plates are as follows :

(ii) North American (with western Atlantic floor separated from the South American plate along the Caribbean islands) plate

(iii) South American (with western Atlantic floor separated from the North American plate along the Caribbean islands) plate

(iv) Pacific plate

(v) India-Australia-New Zealand plate

(vi) Africa with the eastern Atlantic floor plate

(vii) Eurasia and the adjacent oceanic plate.

Some important minor plates are listed below

: (i) Cocos plate : Between Central America and Pacific plate

(ii) Nazca plate : Between South America and Pacific plate

(iii) Arabian plate : Mostly the Saudi Arabian landmass

(iv) Philippine plate : Between the Asiatic and Pacific plate

(v) Caroline plate : Between the Philippine and Indian plate (North of New Guinea)

(vi) Fuji plate : North-east of Australia

These plates have been constantly moving over the globe throughout the history of the earth. It is not the continent that moves as believed by Wegener. Continents are part of a plate and what moves is the plate. Moreover, it may be noted that all the plates, without exception, have moved in the geological past, and shall continue to move in the future as well. Wegener had thought of all the continents to have initially existed as a super continent in the form of Pangaea. However, later discoveries reveal that the continental masses, resting on the plates, have been wandering all through the geological period, and Pangaea was a result of converging of different continental masses that were parts of one or the other plates. Scientists using the palaeomagnetic data have determined the positions held by each of the present continental landmass in different geological periods. Position of the Indian subcontinent (mostly Peninsular India) is traced with the help of the rocks analysed from the Nagpur area. There are three types of plate boundaries

 

Divergent Boundaries

Where new crust is generated as the plates pull away from each other. The sites where the plates move away from each other are called spreading sites. The best-known example of divergent boundaries is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. At this, the American Plate(s) is/are separated from the Eurasian and African Plates.

 

Convergent Boundaries

Where the crust is destroyed as one plate dived under another. The location where sinking of a plate occurs is called a subduction zone. There are three ways in which convergence can occur. These are: (i) between an oceanic and continental plate; (ii) between two oceanic plates; and (iii) between two continental plates.

 

Transform Boundaries

Where the crust is neither produced nor destroyed as the plates slide horizontally past each other. Transform faults are the planes of separation generally perpendicular to the midoceanic ridges. As the eruptions do not take all along the entire crest at the same time, there is a differential movement of a portion of the plate away from the axis of the earth. Also, the rotation of the earth has its effect on the separated blocks of the plate portions.

 

Rates of Plate Movement

The strips of normal and reverse magnetic field that parallel the mid-oceanic ridges help scientists determine the rates of plate movement. These rates vary considerably. The Arctic Ridge has the slowest rate (less than 2.5 cm/yr), and the East Pacific Rise near Easter Island, in the South Pacific about 3,400 km west of Chile, has the fastest rate (more than 15 cm/yr).

 

Force for the Plate Movement

At the time that Wegener proposed his theory of continental drift, most scientists believed that the earth was a solid, motionless body. However, concepts of sea floor spreading and the unified theory of plate tectonics have emphasised that both the surface of the earth and the interior are not static and motionless but are dynamic. The fact that the plates move is now a well-accepted fact. The mobile rock beneath the rigid plates is believed to be moving in a circular manner. The heated material rises to the surface, spreads and begins to cool, and then sinks back into deeper depths. This cycle is repeated over and over to generate what scientists call a convection cell or convective flow. Heat within the earth comes from two main sources: radioactive decay and residual heat. Arthur Holmes first consideredthis idea in the 1930s, which later influenced Harry Hess’ thinking about seafloor spreading. The slow movement of hot, softened mantle that lies below the rigid plates is the driving force behind the plate movement.

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