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Just a nit-pick: Continental Drift is the theory that the continents were floating on the ocean and has been replaced by plate tectonics. It's not right to say
by MartinCron 14y ago
Just a nit-pick: Continental Drift is the theory that the continents were floating on the ocean and has been replaced by plate tectonics. It's not right to say that theory is correct, even though it does align with the facts about Pangea, etc.
- btilly 14y agoIf you're going to nitpick, choose your words carefully. :-P http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_drift http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_drift puts it, Continental drift is the movement of the Earth's continents relative to each other by appearing to drift across the ocean bed. Note that "appearing to drift" and "floating on the ocean" are very, very different things. A trivial comparison of rocks and water demonstrates that "floating on the ocean" would be inconceivable for something natural that is as big as a continent. That said, plate tectonics is a much better theory. But I would say that it has the same relation to continental drift that Newtonian mechanics has to Special Relativity. The theory is clearly wrong, but the succeeding theory explains why the less detailed theory appears to work. Furthermore plate tectonics is itself a theory that in due course of time will be (and to some extent already has been) replaced by something more complete. For instance consider Hawaii. We have a chain of islands that is produced by the movement of the Pacific plate over a hot spot. What creates these hot spots? What role do they have in pushing plate tectonics? A theory that explains all of this will be undoubtably differ in detail from the original theory of plate tectonics, though it will have to explain why plate tectonics seemed to work.
- MartinCron 14y agoOK, I stand corrected. I thought the continental drift was a more literal and less poetic theory. That's what I get for nit-picking.