competing theories on global tectonics

Question 1

Galileo

Answer 1

placed under house arrest by the church = his theory
theory based on the sky/ night sky by looking through his telescope
discovered movement of earth > the sun / Jupiters moons

Question 2

navigator who proved earth wasn’t flat

Answer 2

Christopher Columbus

Question 3

Abraham Ortelius 1596 discovery

Answer 3

dutch map maker discovered Africa and South America fit together like a jigsaw

Question 4

Alfred Wegener 1915 idea based on the continents

Answer 4

Africa and South American may have been joined once
evidence: plants, animals and fossils, glacial till and rock sequences
recognised as theory in 1960s

Question 5

Hess’s discovery of mountains led to what concept

Answer 5

sea floor spreading

Question 6

sea floor spreading

Answer 6

rocks get older as they’re further away from centre ridge
occurs as divergent plate boundaries
EX - Himalayans

Question 7

palaeomagnetism

Answer 7

association with sea floor spreading

different iron orientation in the rock is dependent on the magnetic field

Question 8

global expansion theory

Answer 8

suggests earth was 60% of its current size
criticism: rejects the existence of large oceans prior to Pangea but life in oceans existed 3000yrs prior to Pangea times

Question 9

evidence for tectonic theory

Answer 9

glacial deposits
jigsaw theory
palaeomagnetism
fossils