FREE ESSAY ON PLATE TECTONICS

PLATE TECTONICS

Plate Tectonics
Prior to World War II, humans were conformed with the idea that the Earth and its
continents had been basically unchanged since the beginning of time. A German
meteorologist, Alfred Wegener observed that the coastlines of the seven continents could
be fitted together almost perfectly like a jigsaw puzzle. If fitted together, the
geological dating the land would match as well as other geological features. He believed
that this was more than coincidence, which happened to be the belief at the time. By
putting all the continents together, he formed a large landmass that he named Pangea.
This would also explain the same fossils found on 2 continents, separated by large
oceans. Although the continents fit together nicely, and it would solve many of the
earth's mysteries, people still rejected the idea that the continents moved for several
reasons. Ignorance and strong religious beliefs played a part in this, but it was mainly
rejected because of the lack of a good explanation for the movement of the continents.
Wegener's theory for the movement of continents was called continental drift. This was
not believable at the time because there was no way the continents could move through the
rigid ocean floor.
During WWII, people started to explore the ocean floor and discovered evidence that would
prove Wegener's ideas about land movement. The most interesting feature of the ocean was
the ridges running along the ocean floor. It was discovered that earthquakes were
abundant along the ridges that let magma flow from them. The magma would flow out these
ridges and push the Earth away from it. This sea floor spreading was how the continents
had moved over millions of years. The earth's crust is in mobile sections called plates,
moved by the circulation of magma in a layer of the earth called the mantle. The moving
and colliding of plates form many of today's landforms such as the Himalayan Mountains.
They were formed when India moved into Asia, colliding and making the shores of India go
underneath Asia. 
Although we have found much on plate tectonics, there are still some unanswered
questions. The depths of the plates are still unknown. Scientists are still unsure on how
the motion of the mantle was initiated. There are many theories on how plate tectonics
works and why the polarization of the Earth switches every million years but there have
been no concrete facts.
Plate tectonics needs to be explored more in order to solve much of the mysteries of the
earth. It has already answered many questions about the geologic history. The moving
plates, volcanoes, and faults explain much of the earth's topography. If we come to a
better understanding of plate tectonics, the evolution of different species of animals
will become clearer to us. The history of plate tectonics will help us understand the
past migrations of species and even early humans. Not only can studying plate tectonics
help in understanding the past but can help predict the future. Advancement of these
theories may help predict earthquakes in plenty of time to spare millions of lives and
can help us predict the topography of the future.