英语专业八级阅读理解练习及答案详解(10).pdfVIP

2016英语专业八级阅读理解练习及答案详解（10） Exploration on the Origin of Continents The origin of continental nuclei has long been a puzzle.Theories advanced so far have generally failed to explain the firststep in continent growth, or have been subject to seriousobjections. It is the purpose of this article to examine thepossible role of the impact of large meteorites or asteroids in theproduction of continental nuclei. Unfortunately, the geologicalevolution of the Earth’s surface has had an obliterating effect onthe original composition and structure of the continents to such an extent that further terrestrialinvestigations have small chance of arriving at an unambiguous answer to the question ofcontinental origin. Paradoxically, clues to the origin and early history of the surface features of theEarth may be found on the Moon and planets, rather than on the Earth, because some of thesebodies appear to have had a much less active geological history. As a result, relatively primitivesurface features are preserved for study and analysis. In the case of both the Moon and Mars, it isgenerally concluded from the appearance of their heavily cratered surfaces that they have beensubjected to bombardment by large meteoroids during their geological history. Likewise, it wouldappear a reasonable hypothesis that the Earth has also been subjected to meteoroidbombardment in the past, and that very large bodies struck the Earth early in its geologicalhistory. The large crater on the Moon listed by Baldwin has a diameter of 285 km. However, if weaccept the hypotheses of formation of some of the mare basins by impact, the maximum lunarimpact crater diameter is probably as large as 650km. Based on a lunar analogy, one might expectseveral impact cratersof at least 500km diameter to have been formed on Earth. By applyingBaldwin’s equation, the depth of such a crater should be about 20km. Baldwin admits that hisequation gives excessive depths for large crater