Continental drift

APR 01, 1969

Thermal convection within the earth’s crystalline mantle provides a mechanism for large‐scale surface displacements. Oceanic ridges occur where the flow of convection cells comes up to the surface; trenches occur where it descends again.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3035524

Donald L. Turcotte

E. Ronald Oxburgh

TODAY MOST EARTH SCIENTISTS accept continental drift as a geological fact. Relative movements between continents on a time scale of $10^{8}$ years are necessary to explain many geological observations. The remarkable similarity in shape between the west coast of Africa and the east coast of South America has been recognized for nearly as long as accurate maps of the Atlantic have been available; many have assumed that these continents once were connected. It is also accepted that the continents float on the mantle much like blocks of wood on water.

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More about the Authors

Donald L. Turcotte. Cornell University.

E. Ronald Oxburgh. St. Edmund Hall, University of Oxford.