History of Plate Tectonics

Abraham Ortelius believed that the tectonic plates separated the continents through continental drift and though that it was starting to push the continents away to form new ones. He noticed how the continents all fit together when they were spread apart.

Alfred Wegner noticed that the continents were drifting away cut so that the pieces could still fit together. He studied it a little bit more and that convection currents split up the pieces, which made the words that are now known as...Continental Drift.

Arthur Holmes discovered that there were convection currents in the mantle. Arthur said that the core heats the mantles material causing it to rise all the way to the crust. The mantles convection breaks the lithosphere into tiny plates and move to collide or break apart.

Harry H. Hess made the theory of sea floor spreading. When ocean plates separate it can cause fractures or cracks in the lithosphere and cools the seafloor. Seafloor spreading and the splitting of tectonic plates cause mantle convection.

Fredrick Vine and Drummond Matthews made the discovery of magnetic stripes on the ocean floor. The study of Earths older magnetic field. Every 200,000 years Earths magnets reverses. They are in an alignment because of the materials that they contain. The materials contain such things as metal.