THEORIES

Question 1

Earth may appear as a solid, steady, and unchanging sphere of rock but in truth, it is constantly undergoing minor and major changes externally and internally. Several theories have been proposed to explain changes such as the formation of different landforms, separation of continents, formation of new ocean floor and the movement of the lithospheric plates.

Answer 1

PLATE TECTONICS

Question 2

Earth began a single landmass or supercontinent called _____

Answer 2

PANGAEA

Question 3

It has been proposed that today’s continents were once joined together and gradually drifted apart as a result of tectonic forces. These continents are cradled by continental tectonic plates found on the lithosphere.

Answer 3

PLATE TECTONICS THEORY

Question 4

“250 million years ago, during the _________, the continents were once joined together in one large mass called PANGAEA.”

Answer 4

PERMIAN PERIOD

Question 5

“ 200 million years ago, Pangaea, the supercontinent, broke into two smaller supercontinents GONDWANA - and LAURASIA.”

Answer 5

TRIASSIC PERIOD

Question 6

Millions of years ago after the PANGAEA broke into two supercontinents, ________and ________ were further split into smaller land masses, which are the continents today

Answer 6

Gondwana
Laurasia

Question 7

In the mid 1800s. _________ hypothesized that Gondwana were split into different continents

Answer 7

Eduard Suess

Question 8

GONDWANA (5)

Answer 8

AFRICA
ANTARCTICA
SOUTH AMERICA
AUSTRALIA
SUBCONTINENTS OF INDIA

Question 9

In 1937, South African geologist _______, coined that laurasia was the precursor to the other continents

Answer 9

Alexander du Toit

Question 10

Laurasia (3)

Answer 10

ASIA
EUROPE
NORTH AMERICA

Question 11

is a scientific theory describing the large-scale motion of seven large plates and the movements of a larger number of smaller plates of the Earth’s lithosphere, since tectonic processes began on Earth between 3 and 3.5 billion years ago.

Answer 11

Plate tectonics

Question 12

a meteorologist of the beginning of the 20th century, as the father of the theory that he at that time referred to as “The Continental Drift”. His book the Origin of Continents and Oceans, published in 1915, is widely accepted as the beginning of modern plate tectonics, even if the theory was only widely accepted in a refined version in 1960s (the theory cannot further explain why plates are moving)

Answer 12

Alfred Wegener,

Question 13

_________ explain that Earth’s lithosphere is composed of many independent massive slabs of solid rocks called plates.

Answer 13

Plate tectonics

Question 14

PRIMARY PLATES (7)

Answer 14

North American Plate
Eurasian Plate
Pacific Plate
South American Plate
African Plate
Australian Plate
Antarctic Plate

Question 15

SECONDARY PLATES (8)

Answer 15

Philippine sea Plate
Juan de Fuca Plate
Cocos Plate
Caribbean Plate
Nazca plate
Scotia platet
Arabian plate
Indian plate

Question 16

__________ - it is possible because it’s still moving at this point it might be a bigger landmass. There is a study that HIMALAYAN is getting taller and taller. In Africa there is a new landform. In the Philippines there is a plate that will soon rise.

Answer 16

PANGAEA PROXIMA

Question 17

THEORIES

Answer 17

CONTRACTION THEORY
CONTINENTAL DRIFT THEORY
SEAFLOOR SPREADING THEORY

Question 18

• One of the earliest theory
  suggested that the planet was once a molten ball and in the process of cooling the surface cracked and folded up on itself
• The theory suggested that as earth cooled after it’s formation, it’s surface contracted and wrinkled, with these wrinkles being the mountain ranges on Earth’s surface

Answer 18

Contraction theory

Question 19

It asserted that there once existed a single large landmass or supercontinent, he called Pangaea
The _________ was strongly criticized during the first half of 20th century until the second world war, during the war the demonstrator technology was used to map the seafloor, rapidly evidence pointing to the process of seafloor spreading and effective plate motion was accumulated.
The theory is just an assumption

Answer 19

CONTINENTAL DRIFT THEORY

Question 20

• is a geological process in which tectonics plates split apart from each other. (underneath the sea/underneath the ocean floor ) Plates move or split apart from each other.

Answer 20

Sea floor spreading

Question 21

• He published “The history of Ocean Basins” in 1962 in which he outlined a theory that could explain how the continents could actually drift. This theory later became known as ‘Sea Floor Spreading’

Answer 21

Harry Hess

Question 22

Harry Hess
He used ______. He was able to know the processes that’s happening on the ocean floor.
Discovered that oceans where shallower in the middle