What theory will explain the possible causes in the movement of plate tectonics?
Mantle convection drives plate tectonics. Hot material rises at mid-ocean ridges and sinks at deep sea trenches, which keeps the plates moving along the Earth’s surface.
What is the theory of plate tectonics in your own words?
The theory of plate tectonics states that the Earth’s solid outer crust, the lithosphere, is separated into plates that move over the asthenosphere, the molten upper portion of the mantle. Oceanic and continental plates come together, spread apart, and interact at boundaries all over the planet.
What is the theory of plate tectonics with evidence?
There is variety of evidence that supports the claims that plate tectonics accounts for (1) the distribution of fossils on different continents, (2) the occurrence of earthquakes, and (3) continental and ocean floor features including mountains, volcanoes, faults, and trenches.
How is plate tectonic the most important theory explaining the movement of oceans and continents?
Plate motions cause mountains to rise where plates push together, or converge, and continents to fracture and oceans to form where plates pull apart, or diverge. The continents are embedded in the plates and drift passively with them, which over millions of years results in significant changes in Earth’s geography.
How does the theory of plate tectonics support the theory of seafloor spreading?
Significance. Seafloor spreading helps explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics. When oceanic plates diverge, tensional stress causes fractures to occur in the lithosphere. At a spreading center, basaltic magma rises up the fractures and cools on the ocean floor to form new seabed.
What is the theory of plate tectonics in a sentence?
The theory of plate tectonics holds that the entire crust of the earth is broken into six large pieces and many smaller ones. In the 1960s a conceptual revolution, the theory of plate tectonics, changed the way earth scientists thought. Show More Sentences.
What does the theory of plate tectonics explain about Earth’s plates quizlet?
The plate tectonics theory suggested that Earth’s surface is divided into large plates of rigid rock. Each plate moves over Earth’s hot semi-plastic mantle. The theory of plate tectonics states that Earth’s surface is made of rigid slabs of rock, or plates, that move with respect to each other.
What does the theory of plate tectonics explain that continental drift theory could not explain?
Plate tectonics explains why Earth’s continents are moving; the theory of continental drift did not provide an explanation. Scientists have found that the planet’s continents will likely again be joined together in about 250 million years. Researchers have dubbed this future continental configuration “Pangaea Proxima.”
How the theory of plate tectonics explains earthquakes?
Earthquakes occur along fault lines, cracks in Earth’s crust where tectonic plates meet. They occur where plates are subducting, spreading, slipping, or colliding. As the plates grind together, they get stuck and pressure builds up. Finally, the pressure between the plates is so great that they break loose.
How does the theory of plate tectonics help explain the volcanoes?
On land, volcanoes form when one tectonic plate moves under another. Usually a thin, heavy oceanic plate subducts, or moves under, a thicker continental plate. When enough magma builds up in the magma chamber, it forces its way up to the surface and erupts, often causing volcanic eruptions.