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Expanded editions during the 1920s presented further evidence. (The first English edition was published in 1924 as The Origin of Continents and Oceans, a translation of the 1922 third German edition.) The last German edition, published in 1929, revealed the significant observation that shallower oceans were geologically younger.
Continental drift is the scientific theory, originating in the early 20th century, that Earth's continents move or drift relative to each other over geologic time. [1] The theory of continental drift has since been validated and incorporated into the science of plate tectonics, which studies the movement of the continents as they ride on plates of the Earth's lithosphere.
In modern schemes with five or more recognized continents, at least one pair of continents is joined by land in some fashion. The criterion "large" leads to arbitrary classification: Greenland , with a surface area of 2,166,086 square kilometres (836,330 sq mi), is only considered the world's largest island, while Australia , at 7,617,930 ...
A significant body of water (referred to as the Central American Seaway) once separated the continents of North and South America, allowing the waters of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans to mix freely. Beneath the surface, two plates of the Earth's crust were slowly colliding, forcing the Cocos Plate to slide under the Caribbean Plate.
The continents now known as Africa and South America started to split around 140 million years ago, researchers said. The south Atlantic Ocean eventually filled the void.
Plate motions range from 10 to 40 millimetres per year (0.4 to 1.6 in/year) ... Wegener expanded his theory in his 1915 book The Origin of Continents and Oceans. [49]
The borders of the oceans are the limits of Earth's oceanic waters.The definition and number of oceans can vary depending on the adopted criteria. The principal divisions (in descending order of area) of the five oceans are the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Southern (Antarctic) Ocean, and Arctic Ocean.
As the oceans absorb CO 2 from the atmosphere, ... and by the shape of the rocky continents blocking oceanic water flow. ... An average of 2,332 new species per year ...