http://www.5min.com/Video/Learn-about-The-Continental-Drift---Plate-Tectonics-117505893

This site is mainly focusing on the continental drift theory and how the continents were once connected. There has been many films on trying to explain this theory, and now there is our site.

Continental Plates Drifting

This is the continental plates drifting from one another.  As you can see, the plates were all once connected and slowly started to move away from each other.  The plates are always moving, but they move so slow that we can't even notice them moving at all.  The few times you can feel them moving is when they collide with one anther, slide past one another, or separate from one another.  All of these cause earthquakes shaking the ground that we stand on.  Also, these plates move because the continental plates are floating on the liquid mantle that never stops moving so the plates never stop moving.  So, as you see in the picture the reason for these plates connecting and separating is because the crust is made-up of these continental plates, and these plates sit on the liquid mantle that never stops moving, causing the crust to always be moving.

This is the world millions of years ago before the world started splitting apart. There are 6 huge plates, and a whole bunch of litle plates.

continental plates

The continental drift theory is the theory that once all the continents were joined in a super-continent, which scientists call Pangaea. Over a vast period of time, the continents drifted apart to their current locations. Alfred Wegener first supported continental drift.

Wegener’s explanation of continental drift in 1912 was that drifting occurred because of the earth’s rotation. This explanation and his theory were not widely accepted. Prior to Wegener, however, many had noted that the shapes of the continents seem to fit together, suggesting some schism in the past.

Continental drift was really not allowable as even an accepted theory until the 1950s. Most geologists accepted the theory as quite possible before 1970. Several factors point to the acceptance of the continental drift theory.

Fossil records from separate continents, particularly on the outskirts of continents show the same species. As well mineral specimens along the supposed break lines of the continents are nearly identical. Some identical species exist on certain continents, like an earthworm common to both Africa and South America suggesting the species could not have spontaneously arisen on both continents without some variations.

Continental drift theory also gained in popularity because of the theory of plate tectonics. Briefly plate tectonics suggests that the ocean floor began to spread and that the continents existed on “plates” that moved in response to the changing ocean floor. Disruption in the continents, such as earthquakes, is in response to the moving plates, suggesting that certain points of the continents are fairly constantly exhibiting tiny movements.

For example Point Reyes, in Northern California, located on the San Andreas Fault line, has been measured as slowly moving north at a rate of about half an inch per year. In fact, geologists theorize that with continued movement, Point Reyes might eventually become an island.

Not everyone accepts continental drift theory since not everyone accepts the same age for the earth. It is especially common among certain religions that endorse creationism to believe that the earth is far younger than supposed by geologists. Some of these religions also do not accept carbon dating as a way of determining earth, or fossil records being as old as scientists claim.

Most scientists, and those not believing in creationism, accept the continental drift theory, along with the theory of plate tectonics. Those endorsing the theory of intelligent design usually accept continental drift as well, but assert that a spiritual presence designed and created the earth. Continental drift theory is now taught as accepted theory in public schools throughout the US.

HOW IT WORKS

Although the evidence for continental drift became overwhelming, no mechanism was proposed until the early 1960's when Harry Hess and Robert Dietz described a process of ocean floor spreading supported by the symmetric banding of the magnetic signature of the sea floor parallel to ocean ridges.

Currents form within any liquid when it is heated, just as they do in a pot of boiling soup. Similar currents form with the Earth's thick, dense mantle. The source of heat is the decay of radiogenic istopes. Arthur Holmes was the first to propse this mechanism in 1945.

As the mantle is heated, it rises, creating massive, slow convection currents within the Earth. The heated rock spreads i laterally at the base of the solid lithosphere, dragging the frgmented crust with it. Volcanoes and earthquakes occur as a direct consquence of plate movements.