Question

Continental Drift Research HW(12 Sentences)

Answer 1

Answer:

Here it is lol

Explanation:

Continental drift is the hypothesis 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. In the early 20th century, Wegener published a paper explaining his assumption that the continental landmasses were drifting across the planet, sometimes plowing through oceans and into each other. He called this movement Continental drift. Many people did not believe the theory and he received criticism for it because it was incomplete and flawed, and he could not fully explain what drove the continental drift to occur. You can best see this in the quote by Geologist R. Thomas Chamberlain. “If we are to believe in Wegener’s hypothesis we must forget everything which has been learned in the past 70 years and start all over again.”The idea of Continental drift includes the theory of plate tectonics, which explains the cause of the continents drifting. The earth’s outer shell composed of plates moves a little bit every year. The heat coming from the interior of the earth triggers this movement to occur through convection currents inside the mantle. And that all of the Earth's continents were once part of an enormous, single landmass called Pangaea.

As part of his hypothesis of a mega continent, he discovered research papers on fossils supporting his theory that Africa and South America had once been connected. These studies indicated evidence of fossils of identical land animals that had lived in both areas simultaneously hundreds of millions of years ago. One fossilized land organism that added credibility to Wegener’s theory was that of the Mesosaurus, a small, freshwater aquatic reptile from the Permian period about 260 million years ago in what is now Easternsouth America and Southwestern Africa. Wegener asserted that South America and Africa must have been joined during that period of history because fossils of Mesosaurus are limited to those regions, and if Mesosaurus had been able to make the long journey across the South Atlantic, its fossils would likely be more widely distributed.