describe the continental drift theory
Answers
Explanation:
Continental drift is the theory that the Earth's continents have moved over geologic time relative to each other, thus appearing to have "drifted" across the ocean bed. The speculation that continents might have 'drifted' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596.
Answer:
Alfred Wegener 1880-1930 a German meteorologist and geologist, was the first person to propose the theory of continental drift. In his book, Origin of Continents and Oceans, he calculated that 200 million years ago the continents were originally joined together, forming large supercontinent. He named this supercontinent Pangaea, meaning All-earth.
The Earth's crust is not a single continuous layer. It is made up of a number of gigantic pieces like a huge jigsaw puzzle.
Each piece is called a crustal plate. Currents of molten rock rise up through the mantle like boiling water in a saucepan.
These form convection cells that drive the movement of the plates so that they are continuously moving away or towards each other. Geologically, the most important things happen at the plate boundaries, including most of the earthquakes, volcanoes, igneous rocks, major metamorphism, and mountain building processes.