From Continental Drift to Plate Tectonics

Abstract

SINCE THE l6TH CENTURY, CARTOGRAPHERS HAVE NOTICED THE jigsaw-puzzle fit of the continental edges. Since the 19th century, geologists have known that some fossil plants and animals are extraordinarily similar across the globe, and some sequences of rock formations in distant continents are also strikingly alike. At the turn of the 20th century, Austrian geologist Eduard Suess proposed the theory of Gondwanaland to account for these similarities: that a giant supercontinent had once covered much or all of Earth's surface before breaking apart to form continents and ocean basins. A few years later, German meteorologist Alfred Wegener suggested an alternative explanation: continental drift. The paleontological patterns and jigsaw-puzzle fit could be explained if the continents had migrated across the earth's surface, sometimes joining together, sometimes breaking apart. Wegener argued that for several hundred million years during the late Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras (200 million to 300 million years ago), the continents were united into a supercontinent that he labeled Pangea—all Earth. Continental drift would also explain paleoclimate change, as continents drifted through different climate zones and ocean circulation was altered by the changing distribution of land and sea, while the interactions of rifting and drifting land masses provided a mechanism for the origins of mountains, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Continental drift was not accepted when first proposed, but in the 1960s it became a cornerstone of the new global theory of plate tectonics. The motion of land masses is now explained as a consequence of moving "plates"—large fragments of the earth's surface layer in which the continents are embedded. These plates comprise the upper 45 to 60