Which Land Feature Supports the Theory of Continental Drift?

Hello everyone, welcome back to MidGeo. Which Land Feature Supports the Theory of Continental Drift? The distribution of present-day continents and oceans was a major focus of study for scientists and geographers in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the continental drift theory is one of the pioneer theories that proposed the present-day distribution of land and water.

So, in today, we are going to look into the continental drift theory proposed by Alfred Wagner.

Who Proposed the Continental Drift Theory?

The idea of continental drift theory was proposed by Alfred Wagner, who wrote a book called “The Origin of Continents and Ocean Basins” in German.

In this book, he wrote that he was attracted by the similarity of the opposite coastlines of the South Atlantic Ocean when he was looking into an atlas in the year 1912.

This made him analyze the distribution of present-day continents, and he found that there is a possibility that all the present seven continents might have joined together as a single landmass in the geological past.

Wagner also found earlier scientists giving similar ideas, taking all these into consideration. He outlined the coordinated drift theory.

Published in the book in the year 1922 there are a number of points that can be given to explain the reason for Wagner to give his idea on continental drift.

The ideas were mentioned by many people even before Wagner in the year 1620.

Francis bacon observed that the North America was separated from Europe in the late 1880s.

Antonio’s needle indicated that the Southern continents of South America, Africa and Australia might have been united in the geological past.

The most important point about the contribution of this theory is with respect to Darwin’s contribution.

In his evolution of species, Darwin explained the distribution of certain animals in some parts of the world.

• One was with regard to the distribution of hippopotamus in Africa and Madugaskar island which was separated by about 600 kilometers of open ocean.
• Another one is the distribution of lumos which are a particular type of monkeys found in India, Sri Lanka and Australia and presently separated by open oceans.

Today you can find different types of animals found in Australia, Papua New Guinea which are also located nearer to each other but separated by open ocean.

Solar just found it difficult to explain the about 3 distributions. They thought that the land bridges existed to help such a distribution all these ideas were considered by alfred wagner.

He also felt that there was a jigsaw fit between the coastlines of Africa and South America. This is the background under which Wagner proposed the continental drift theory.

What is the Theory of Plate Tectonics?

Let’s look into the explanation of this theory, At present, there are seven major continents with different locational distributions.

Plate Tectonics Definition

Plate tectonics is the scientific theory that explains the movement of the Earth’s lithosphere, which is the outermost solid layer of the planet that includes the crust and the upper mantle.

The lithosphere is divided into a number of large, rigid plates that move on top of the softer, underlying mantle.

This movement is driven by convection currents in the mantle, which are caused by heat from the Earth’s interior being transferred to the surface.

The movement of the plates can cause a number of geological phenomena, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the formation of mountain ranges.

What is Pangea?

Vechna felt that, in the geological past, all the seven continents were joined together to form a single supercontinent.

He called it “Pangaea”. In this Pangaea Wagner has identified two groups of land masses,

1. The northern part and
2. The southern part

• The northern part of the landmass comprised Drasandi North America, Europe, and Northern Asia up to the north of the Himalayas.

Wagner called this part as Laurasia or Angara land the southern group of the landmass is called Gondwanaland.

It comprised of present-day South America, Africa, Australia, Antarctica peninsula, India, and Arabia.

In between these two group of landmasses there was a shallow sea called Titus. The panchaya remained as a single landmass up to the upper Triassic or the Cretaceous Spirit about 180 million years ago.

When Did Pangea Break Up?

The pangaea started breaking due to two major forces,

1. The first was a strong westward force, which brought the South America, and North America and pushed them towards the west this created the Atlantic ocean in between. Even here the South America broke first and this is proved by the fact that the Atlantic coast is brought between the South America, and Africa than the North America, and Europe.
2. The another one was the equation force, which broke the goldwanna land and this resulted the equatorial movement of Africa Peninsula, India, Arabia, and Australia. Because of the equatorial force the shallow sea of Titis was remote the sedimentary deposits under the TTC were folded to form the yang Himalayan and Alpine Chain of mountains.

Because of these, two forces, the continents drifted in different directions and have their present distribution.

What landforms are created by continental continental?

Continental landforms:

Continental Landforms	Description
Valley	Low land between hills or mountains
Canyon	Deep valley with high steep sides
Volcano	An opening in Earth’s surface from which lava flows
Mountain Range	Land which rises high above the ground
Plains	Wide, flat areas of land

Evidences of Continental Drift Theory

Let’s look into the major evidences that support the continental drift theory.

• The first one was the young fold mountains. In the modern geomorphology the evolution of landforms is important the Himalayan mountain chain is a major landform, and is a fold mountain, this folding is possible only when two compressional forces act towards each other.

Thus the Indian peninsula might have moved towards the northeastern part. Thereby creating the young fold mountains of the Himalayas thus the presence of young fold mountains gives evidence of the drifting of continental areas.

• The second one was the jigsaw fit evidence. Wagner gave the jigs of it off the opposite coastlines of the South Atlantic ocean.

There is a similarity in shape between the Atlantic coast of South America and Africa. Which may be fitted together this gave evidence that South America might have been united with Africa.

In the geological past, the evidence to support the drift is given from the distribution of some of the paleoclimatic evidences.

One is the distribution of the code in any area where coal is found it should be sure that these regions will be covered with thick forests and harsh climate.

At present, Siberia is having a very cold climate and so it cannot have a thick forest.

However, in the Siberian region, you can find good quality coal deposits, which prove that Siberia might have been in a warm climate.

Read Also: How Are Natural Resources Used in Agriculture? – Natural Resources

In the past giving some evidence of drifting of the theory another one is the distribution of tillets. All the glacial deposits are collectively called steel.

Over some time, the till is converted to a rock called a tillet. At present we have tillets in Orisa, Australia, and South America which indicates that these areas will have been covered with ice.

In the past, the drift theory also gives a possible explanation for the present day. Tillet rocks fossil is the imprints of animals, and vegetation preserved in the sedimentary rocks.

The analysis of the sedimentary strata is called stratigraphy and fossil plays an important role in stratigraphy.

When the stratigraphic analysis was made in South America and Africa the strata which were more than 200 million years old had similar forces.

In both areas in contrast to it, the strata which were comparatively younger had different fossils in South America compared to Africa.

This is also indicative to prove that South America and Africa were united 200 million years ago, and separated after that.

Why Was the Continental Drift Theory Rejected?

Let’s look into what are the criticisms against Wagner’s ideas. Several criticisms were made against the idea of continental drift by the Wagner

• The first one was the westward force assumed by the vector which is not enough to push the huge landmass of South America and North America.

It should have been at least ten thousand times stronger force than it would have affected the rotation of the earth and might have stopped the earth’s rotation at least.

An equatorial force assumed by the Wagner is also not enough to push the continents.

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If we assume such a strong force then there should have been a greater concentration of land in the equatorial region, but presently the equatorial region has a more oceanic area and lesser land area.

An answer for this has been given by Wagner. He explained that we should not take the present-day equator from the past the equator was lying in the northern part of the present-day equator where the land area is more the third criticism is about the jigsaw fit Wagner considered.

The jigsaw fit of South American and African. The coastline was the basis for his drift theory but when the actual coastlines of South America and Africa were fitted together there was a gap of about 100 kilometers.

So, this evidence is being questioned the another criticism is not against the theory. It accepts the Wagner’s idea but it indicates that there is a better Jaco fit existing between the coastlines of northwest Europe on one side and Greenland, North America, and Elsmere island on the other side.

Then why has Wagner not considered that a better jigsaw fit? The last criticism accepts all the ideas about Wagner but asks a simple question: what kept the panchayat together till the upper Triassic?

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I hope you have enjoyed today’s post. Here we attempt to clarify the Continental Drift Theory: Which Land Features Support the Continental Drift Theory? Who Proposed the Continental Drift Theory? Evidences of Continental Drift Theory and many more answers.

If you have any doubts about the right questions, answers, or queries, please post them in the comment box. I wish everyone a great learning experience.