Theory of Plate Tectonics
Plate Tectonics
Development of plate tectonics
The beginning of the plate tectonic theory was around the 1920's. A German meteorologist/geophysicist Alfred Wegener presented the first detailed accounts of how the continents were one super-continent, that slowly drifted away to their present positions. The theory didn't go world wide until about the 1950's, when scientists found the alignment of magnetic particles in rock responded to the earth's magnetic field of that time.
Relationship Between Pangaea and Plate Tectonics
From the 1950's to the 1970's, scientists made some important discoveries about the ocean's crust. Some of the first breakthroughs came in the field of paleomagnetism, as scientists studied the Earth's magnetic fields. The magnetic properties of rocks are classified either as normal, meaning that they have the same polarity as the current magnetic field, or as reversed, meaning that the polarity is opposite the Earth's magnetic field.