A tectonic plate (also called a lithospheric plate) is a massive, irregularly-shaped slab of solid rock, generally composed of both continental and oceanic lithosphere. Plates move horizontally over the asthenosphere as rigid units. The lithosphere includes the crust and top mantle with its ...

As mentioned above, the post-drift studies provided considerable information that was not available at the time Wegener put forth his concept of continental drift. Particularly, the mapping of the ocean floor and palaeomagnetic studies of rocks from oceanic regions revealed the following facts: ...

You will notice a line of dots in the central parts of the Atlantic Ocean almost parallel to the coastlines. It further extends into the Indian Ocean. It bifurcates a little south of the Indian subcontinent with one branch moving into East Africa and the other meeting a similar line from ...

1. The Matching of Continents (Jig-Saw-Fit) The shorelines of Africa and South America facing each other have a remarkable and unmistakable match. It may be noted that a map produced using a computer programme to find the best fit of the Atlantic margin was presented by Bullard in 1964. ...

By Alfred Wegener—a German meteorologist 1912. This was regarding the distribution of the oceans and the continents. According to Wegener, all the continents formed a single continental mass and mega ocean surrounded the same. The supercontinent was named PANGAEA, which meant all earth. ...

Intrusive Forms The lava that is released during volcanic eruptions on cooling develops into igneous rocks. Depending on the location of the cooling of the lava, igneous rocks are classified as volcanic rocks (cooling at the surface) and plutonic rocks (cooling in the crust). The lava ...

A volcano is a place where gases, ashes and/or molten rock material — lava — escape to the ground. The mantle contains a weaker zone called asthenosphere. The material in the upper mantle(asthenosphere ) portion is called magma. Once it starts moving towards the crust or it reaches the ...

1. The Crust It is the outermost solid pan of the earth. It is brittle in nature.The thickness of the crust varies under the oceanic and continental areas. Oceanic crust is thinner as compared to the continental crust.The mean thickness of oceanic crust is 5 km whereas that of the continental ...

Every earthquake that happens is recorded by seismographs installed around the world. The records are analyzed to study the seismic waves. This understanding of waves is used to create an image of the structure of the earth’s interior even before drilling. All data collected by seismographs are ...

There are two different type of sources of information about the Interior. The first one is indirect information, which means that they show data in a way that gives us an idea about the Interior, but they don't give direct measurements. These sources are useful in determining what might be inside ...