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Lecture 2: Dynamic Earth: Plate Tectonics Earth is a dynamic planet Continental Drift Paleomagnetism and sea floor spreading Plate tectonics Earthquake and volcano distribution The fit of South America and Africa along the continental slope. Wegener--Continental Drift This animation presents a view of the continents at the level of map precision available to Alfred Wegener, who proposed that the continents once existed as a vast supercontinent, Pangea, that later fragmented. Test the fit of the continents for yourself by clicking and dragging a continent to a new location; then, using the arrow keys on your keyboard, rotate the continent into position. [by Declan DePaor] Play Animation Windows version Play Animation Macintosh version A distribution of terrestrial (land-based) fossil speices. Note creatures like Mesosaurus could not have swum across the Atlantic. Matching mountain ranges across the North Atlantic. The age and structure of the Appalachian Mountains are comparable to the mountain ranges in the British Isles and Scandinavia. Map of Pangaea, showing distribution of coal, reef, sanddune, and salt deposits. Note how deposits now on different continents align in distinct belts. (American Association of Petroleum Geologists) The Earth has a magnetic field. The field resembles that produced by a giant bar magnet placed at the center of the Earth. The reversals of the polarity of Earth’s magnetic field in the recent past. The ocean floor as a magnetic tape recorder. As new basalt is added to the ocean floor at mid-ocean ridges, it is magnetized according to Earth’s existing magnetic field. Fig.4.10 Seafloor spreading. Molten material of the mantle rises at mid-ocean ridges and spreads laterally; and the deep-ocean trenches are the sites where the ocean crust is drawn back to the mantle. A mosaic of rigid plates constitutes Earth’s outer shell. Basic Plate Boundaries Geologists define three types of plate boundary, based simply on the relative motions