What fossil evidence supports continental drift?

What fossil evidence supports continental drift?

One type of evidence that strongly supported the Theory of Continental Drift is the fossil record. Fossils of similar types of plants and animals in rocks of a similar age have been found on the shores of different continents, suggesting that the continents were once joined.

What evidence provides proof of continental drift?

The evidence for continental drift included the fit of the continents; the distribution of ancient fossils, rocks, and mountain ranges; and the locations of ancient climatic zones.

What are the 4 evidences of continental drift?

They based their idea of continental drift on several lines of evidence: fit of the continents, paleoclimate indicators, truncated geologic features, and fossils.

What are 6 pieces of evidence that support continental drift?

What are six pieces of evidence for the continental drift theory? Reptile Fossils- dinosaurs couldn’t have swam across a vast ocean. Plant Fossils- all these regions were once connected and had similar climates. Tropical plants found in Arctic- tropical plants can’t grow in cold climates.

What is believed to cause the plates to move?

The heat from radioactive processes within the planet’s interior causes the plates to move, sometimes toward and sometimes away from each other. This movement is called plate motion, or tectonic shift.

What are the 3 causes of plate movement?

In this lesson, we explore the causes of plate movement, including thermal convection, ridge push and slab pull.

Where would seafloor spreading most likely occur?

mid-ocean ridges

Where is active seafloor spreading occurring today?

What are the features of seafloor?

Features of the ocean include the continental shelf, slope, and rise. The ocean floor is called the abyssal plain. Below the ocean floor, there are a few small deeper areas called ocean trenches. Features rising up from the ocean floor include seamounts, volcanic islands and the mid-oceanic ridges and rises.

Where is the youngest crust on Earth is found?

How old is the youngest seafloor?

They found that the youngest rocks on the seafloor were at the mid-ocean ridges. The rocks get older with distance from the ridge crest. The scientists were surprised to find that the oldest seafloor is less than 180 million years old. This may seem old, but the oldest continental crust is around 4 billion years old.

What is the youngest ocean?

The Atlantic Ocean

How old is the oldest sea floor?

approximately 280 million years old

What is the oldest oceanic crust in the world?

The world’s oldest oceanic crust – around 340 million years old – lies at the bottom of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, according to a geologist in Israel.

What type of plate boundary is the oldest crust on Earth near?

The oldest crust in the ocean dates back to the early Cretaceous, 100-65 million years ago, which is relatively recent in geologic time. If this is the case, where did all the rest of the crust go? This leads us to the second type of plate boundary, which is called a convergent boundary or subduction zone.

What boundary destroys crust?

Convergent boundaries

What is the largest tectonic plate?

the Pacific Plate

How thick are tectonic plates?

Plates are on average 125km thick, reaching maximum thickness below mountain ranges. Oceanic plates (50-100km) are thinner than the continental plates (up to 200km) and even thinner at the ocean ridges where the temperatures are higher.

What is the smallest tectonic plate?

Juan de Fuca Plate

Where is the thinnest part of a tectonic plate?