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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. [2] The speculation that continents might have "drifted" was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596.
On 8 September 2014, NASA reported finding evidence of plate tectonics on Europa, a satellite of Jupiter—the first sign of subduction activity on another world other than Earth. [110] Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, was reported to show tectonic activity in images taken by the Huygens probe, which landed on Titan on January 14, 2005. [111]
During the 17th century, Nicolas Steno was the first to observe and propose a number of basic principles of historical geology, including three key stratigraphic principles: the law of superposition, the principle of original horizontality, and the principle of lateral continuity.
This article describes techniques; for a history of the movement of tectonic plates, see Geological history of Earth.. Plate reconstruction is the process of reconstructing the positions of tectonic plates relative to each other (relative motion) or to other reference frames, such as the Earth's magnetic field or groups of hotspots, in the geological past.
Extensional tectonics is associated with the stretching and thinning of the crust or the lithosphere.This type of tectonics is found at divergent plate boundaries, in continental rifts, during and after a period of continental collision caused by the lateral spreading of the thickened crust formed, at releasing bends in strike-slip faults, in back-arc basins, and on the continental end of ...
Palaeogeographical evidence contributed to the development of continental drift theory, and continues to inform current plate tectonic theories, yielding information about the shape and latitudinal location of supercontinents such as Pangaea and ancient oceans such as Panthalassa, thus enabling reconstruction of prehistoric continents and oceans.
Surface map of oceanic crust showing the generation of younger (red) crust and eventual destruction of older (blue) crust. This demonstrates the crustal spatial evolution at the Earth's surface dictated by plate tectonics. Earth's crustal evolution involves the formation, destruction and renewal of the rocky outer shell at that planet's surface.
Publications in generations after the event reflected on how the Plate Tectonics Revolution was an early example of data science. [5] One commentator claimed that the plate tectonics theory became popular and established a revolution in culture even before scientists could confirm some of the claims for which evidence was lacking. [6]