The Theroy Of Plate Tectonics
Though the theories of plate tectonics now provide us with a modus operandi, they still seem to me to be a periodic phenomenon. Nothing is world-wide, but everything is episodic. In other words, the history of anyone part of the earth, like the life of a soldier, consists of long periods of boredom and short periods of terror. -James Hutton
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With such wisdom has nature ordered things in the economy of this world, that the destruction of one continent is not brought about without the renovation of the earth in the production of another -James Hutton
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The theory of plate tectonics is that scientists believe the world was once a large super continent, named Pangea., and that over a time period of millions of years, seperated into the 7 major plates that we know of. It has been said that there are more than 7, but that is still being argued upon. The 7 major plates are the African, North American, South American, Eurasian, Antartic, European, and the Indo- Australlian plate. Now these plates are surrounded by 3 main plate boundaries. There is the convergent boundary, the divergent boundary, and the transform boundary. Now a convergent boundary is where two tectonic plates move twoards eachother and colide. Earthquakes and volcanoes are very normal around this area as well scince the pressure builds along with plate mantle and also friction. This boundary is also know as the dangerous boundary. A divergent boundary, also know as constructive and extensional,is boundary that is linear, straight, and lies between two plates. They produce riffs and riff boundaries, and often form on the ends of continents near ocean basins. These boundaries also form volcanic islands, which is when plates move apart and molten lava fills. Lastly, transform boundaries, also know as conservitave, boundary is when two plates slip past eachother in oppisite directions and runs along the boundary of a tectonic plate. A tranform boundary is a fault and when they slide past eachother crust is not created and not destroyed.