Hi!
Today, I will be using this presentation to compare two solid theories of plate tectonics. I will be comparing the theory of plate tectonics with the information contained in the Bible.
Now, to really be able to contrast plate tectonic theories, you need to understand that the earth is made up of layers.
So, before I begin, I will quickly cover what they are:
At the centre of the earth, you have the inner core.
Just out from that, you have the outer core.
Next you have the mantle; the furthest part out is the asthenosphere.
The outermost layer of the earth is called the crust, or lithosphere.
So, all of these different layers form the earth today as we know it.
But, let's go back to plate tectonics. Now, plate tectonics is actually
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the title of the main theory that the earth's surface is broken into massive sections of the crust, these are called 'plates', that ride on convection currents in the softer layer of the earth, asthenosphere, in the mantle. Scientist think that the earth has about thirty of those tectonic plates. At least, that's Alfred Wegener's theory. The theory of plate tectonics developed from his theory of continental drift and is the most current and popular view.
In 1912, when looking at a map, he saw how the different continents when placed together like a jigsaw puzzle, can all join together. Although scorned at the time, many geologists now believe his theory was accurate, and that about 200 million years ago, there was one large supercontinent called Pangaea, which in Greek means all land. They believe that Pangea broke into two land masses about 145 million years ago: Gondwana and …show more content…
Laurasia. According to this theory, these two land masses have divided slowly over time into the continents we know today: Gondwana into South America, Africa, India, Australia, and Antarctica; and Laurasia into North America, Europe, and Asia. These plates have been moving for millions of years, so although they travel only slightly each year, they could nonetheless have covered large distances. Creation scientists and flood geologists do not deny that there was a large supercontinent, in fact they agree with it, in the light of Genesis 1:9, where it says, 'And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.”' If the waters were all gathered into one place, then that leads to the land being gathered into one place: linking the two theories to the idea of one giant supercontinent.
So, creation scientists actually believe that there is strong supporting evidence for a divided supercontinent.
That being said, how these plates moved is still being debated. Most geologists believe that they were moved through a process of thermal convection. This is where the plates are dragged horizontally along as the hot magma in the asthenosphere rises up and then flows horizontally along under the plates, creating convection currents. As the liquid rock flows, the friction between it and the tectonic plates above may be enough to move them.
However fast that sounds, the plates can only travel up to 10cm a
year. So, for this process to work, it would take hundreds of millions of years, which is where the main contrast between our second theory, the Bible, lies. In the Bible, it is evident that Earth is a young world, saying that it is less than 6000 years old. With the plates moving at the incredibly fast 2-10 centimetres a year, there is no way anything could have separated in 6000 years. However the creation scientists think that a large event occurred. In the Bible, there is only one main time when this would have happened on a large enough scale to divide continents; Noah's flood. In the Bible in Genesis 7:11, it says, “on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.” When it says that all the springs of the great deep broke forth, it implies that the water was welling up from bellow the earth's crust, strong enough to break or move some of the tectonic plates. Indeed, Antonio Snider-Pellegrini was the first person to voice the idea of a supercontinent in 1859, and this was his belief. Today some believe that the fractures in the Earth’s crust caused by the welling of water remain as fault lines which divide the outer layers of the Earth into Tectonic Plates, and moved them with significant force. This theory says that the dividing of continents and tectonic plates occurred catastrophically during the Genesis Flood. In summary the main theory of plate tectonics, introduced by Alfred Wegener, says that a transition from one large supercontinent to earth as we know it now happened over the course of millions of years. The bible never specifically mentions plate tectonics, but as it is known that the bible says the earth is 6000 years old. In the Biblical theory, scientists believe that the movement of the plates occurred suddenly in the great flood, causing a rapid significant continental break up and then movement of the earth's plates; changing the plates positions. Scientists who believe plate tectonics, Alfred Wegener's theory, believe that the plates move through the process of thermal convection in the asthenosphere. Although there are significant evidence that back up both theories, there is no definite answer as to how the tectonic plates are moving. Or whether the movement of a split from one landmass was true and whether it was over millions of years or a few months. Each person really has to decide for themselves which they believe is correct.
A significant portion of New England was formed as a result of an accretionary orogen. Southeastern New England is marked by a series of terranes that accreted onto the Laurentian supercontinent during the Silurian and Devonian. The Terranes of Gander, Nashoba, Avalon, and Meguma are present from west to east in eastern Massachusetts and all of are Gondwanan provenance. Their modern-day juxtaposition suggests that the marginal Gondwanan micro-continents collided sequentially from west to east, expanding the Laurentian continent with each respective collision. As each subsequent plate collided, an intervening subduction zone died and a new subduction zone was created to the east. The oblique collision of the Avalon Terrane into Laurentia followed the accretions of the Gander and Nashoba Terranes and preceded the accretion of Meguma. The collision was marked by uplift, mylonitic metamorphism, and calc-alkaline Nashoba plutonism as the Iapetus Ocean subducted under the Nashoba and eventually the Avalon collided obliquely into the continental margin.
There are many versions to the same story. There are the heroes and the villain’s side, the conquered and the defeated. However, there are some accounts that have been recorded as true to make the people involved to look more superior than they really where in that event. The event that can be looked at is the battle between the Neo-Assyrians and the Jews of Judah. Each side has its own version of what happened. They also both have their own gods participating in the story in some way. So reading both accounts of the event can tell us how the fighting went and may leave us with new questions.
Ultimately the development of previous inferences and observations which have developed our current model for the Earth’s composition and interior structure are a key concept in understanding our future developments towards resourcing our planet and understanding how it works to a further degree.
Earthquakes are a natural part of the Earth’s evolution. Scientific evidence leads many geologists to believe that all of the land on Earth was at one point in time connected. Because of plate tectonic movements or earthquakes, continental drift occurred separating the one massive piece of land in to the seven major continents today. Further evidence supports this theory, starting with the Mid-Atlantic ridge, a large mass of plate tectonics, which are increasing the size of the Atlantic Ocean while shrinking the Pacific. Some scientists believe that the major plate moveme...
To set the stage, we must go back 270 million years ago when a majority of the earth’s land masses were collected together in a single continent, a supercontinent, named Pangaea (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1). Historian Alfred Crosby explained that this collected all of earth’s land based biology into a single place, creating a single Darwinian “arena for competition” (Crosby, 1). Or in other words, one big evolutionary pot. Crosby also explains that 180 million years ago, Pangea split into two major land masses, what is now the Americas in the Western Hemisphere as one land mass and Euro-Asia and Africa as the second lass mass (Crosby, 1). What was once a single evolutionary pot, was now two, allowing for plant and animal life to take different evolutionary paths. These two worlds remained relatively separate from each other until the arrival of Christopher Columbus and other European explorers. That contact between the old world and the new world brought two distinct evolutionary arenas crashing into each other and returned a majority of the earth’s landmass into a single Darwinian pot, (Crosby, 1) This was Crosby’s re-knitting of the torn “seams of Pangaea.”
Basalt forms due to the partial melting of the layer of the mantle called the asthenosphere. The asthenosphere is the plastic zone of the mantle beneath the rigid lithosphere. Mantle plumes coming from the mesosphere can cause the asthenosphere to melt with heat or even if pressure decreases, which is called decompression melting (Richard 2011). The magma that forms from this melting is mafic magma that solidifies once it reaches the earth’s surface and cools quickly. The above process mainly occurs mainly during intraplate igneous activity which is the main explanation for volcanic activity that occurs a long distance away from a plate boundary. If the tectonic plate above the mantle plume is moving it can create a string of volcanic activity such as in Hawaii. See Fig 2.
The theory concluded that around 200 million years ago, the heavy Pacific Plate collided with the lighter North American Plate, and started sliding underneath, a process known as subduction. This continued for 100 million years, until some 20 million years ago, when the Pacific Plate was forced to change direction and started sliding north, creating the San Andreas Fault. Most of California’s population sits on the west side of the fault, the Pacific plate, while the rest of North America is sitting on the east side of the fault, the North American
A creation myth is an explanation of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. Every creation myth is different, but there is similarity in most of them. Motifs are recurring ideas that help develop a theme and these motifs are common in many creation myths. Three similar motifs are the idea of a supreme being, the idea of people being created from organic material, and the idea of rulers being overthrown. These concepts appear in the Inuit, Greek, Hindu, Chinese, Norse, and many more myths. These three motifs connect to one another and are common in many creation myths.
regions of the earth can indicate which rock layer is older than the other. Trilobite fossils
years, and that it was created as it is now just six thousand years ago? Creationism should
Since the beginning of human kind there has been a cloud of wonder of how our planet was formed. Scientist interested in this field through out the years have developed many different theories to how our planet came about. Before the Twentieth Century, scientists and geologists thought that mountain structures were due to the massive tightening of the earth caused by the gradual cooling of molten rocks. In 1900, American scientist Joseph Le Conte, published an article in the Appleton's Popular Scientific Monthly. He described that the problem in understanding mountain building was establishing the cause of sideways pressure. It was not until 1910, that an American Geologist named F.B.Taylor, proposed the idea of a continental drift. Other scientists dismissed Taylor's idea, because there was just not enough proof. However, Taylor's idea was then backed up by a German scientist named Alfred Wegener. He proposed that the continents surrounding the Atlantic Ocean, Africa and South America fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. His broad range of studies enabled him to incorporate his theory of Plate Tectonics. Wegener, later in 1915 while in the German military published his idea that interpreted how his continental drift theory worked. He proposed that a huge landmass called Pangea, meaning ("all land") existed 200 million years ago. He furthered explained that this super continent began to drift apart very slowly throughout millions of years into what it looks like now. Wegener went on several expeditions through out his life to the continents of South America and Africa.
“Well did you know that there are 2 types of Earths crust? Did you know that the Oceanic Crust is denser than the continental crust? Or did you know that the Continental crust is made of Andesite and Gravel while the oceanic crust is made of basalt?” The Family learned just to stay silent when Garrot starts to ramble on about what he learned in the library.
Convection currents deep in the mantle of the earth, begin to well up towards the surface. As the pressure increases, it sets the crustal plates in motion. There are different kinds of mountains - Volcanic, Folded, Fault-block, and Dome mountains. Volcanic mountains are formed when magma comes up through cracks in the Earth’s crust and explodes out of lava and ash. The Hawaiian volcanoes, Mt. Hood, Mt. Etna, Vesuvius, and Mt. Saint Helens is an example of volcanic mountains.
The concurrent convective circulations in the mantle leads to some segments of the mantle moving on top of the outer core which is very hot and molten in nature. This kind of movement in different segments occurs as tectonic plates. These tectonic plates are basically seven on the earth surface as major ones, although, several small ones exist also. The plates motions are characterized by varying velocities, this variance results to sub sequential collision of two plates (leading to formation of a mountain in a convergent boundary), drift of two plates (leading to formation of rifts in a divergent boundary), or parallel movement in a transform boundary(Webcache 3).
Continental drift is the theory of the shifting of the positioning and look of continents in the past and their predicted look in the future. 2.5 cm a year doesn’t seem like a lot unless we calculate it in the millions or hundreds of million years, possibly even 200 million years ago, the era of Pangea. Pangea is the theory that all the 7 continents that we have classified today were joined into one supercontinent, Pangea. The main evidence for this theory of continental drift and Pangea is that almost identical animal and plant fossils, and similar rock formations, are found on different continents. The coastlines of continents even match up with a little bit of rotation and alignment. Through the years, parts of the supercontinent started to drift apart and continued drifting to turn into the continents we know