Did you know that not until the early 60's was the Fact that the earth has tectonic plates commonly accepted by Geologists. And to be fair, this was still the case up until the 70's.
The Idea that the earths crust and so it's continents was and is moving had been around since the early 1900's. But most geologists thought that the continents have been in the shape they are today from the creation of the earth. The interesting fact that brought about a different way of tinking regarding the plates, was how do you explain fossils of the same type of creature on totally different continents? These geologists came up with the idea of Land Bridges, that spanned across the oceans, and have since disappeared, Without leaving a trace!!
So, when the idea that continents have moved apart and in some cases together, from one big land mass, Pangeae, these said Gelologists were in agog! (not a word you hear too often!) So, it took over half a century to get the Geologists in the world to recognise the fact that the crust of the earth is indeed moving around.
Continental drift was a term coined for this, until they decided that it wasn't just the continents moving around, it was the actual thing that the continents were sitting on that was moving, so the term Plates was finally agreed upon, and then Tectonic Plates. Tectonics, means large scale structure.
|