Making Plate Tectonics
Happen
, Making Plate Tectonics Happen
• When Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift, he didn’t
have a mechanism by which the continents moved, so his theory was
largely ignored because of limited knowledge of the interior of the
Earth and it was difficult to see how the continents could move over
the oceanic crust.
• To explain continental drift, seafloor spreading and plate tectonics,
we need a mechanism by which the lithospheric plates can move.
Happen
, Making Plate Tectonics Happen
• When Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift, he didn’t
have a mechanism by which the continents moved, so his theory was
largely ignored because of limited knowledge of the interior of the
Earth and it was difficult to see how the continents could move over
the oceanic crust.
• To explain continental drift, seafloor spreading and plate tectonics,
we need a mechanism by which the lithospheric plates can move.
