Download Earth`s Moving Plates - pages 186-189

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Earth’s Moving Plates
(Pages 186-189)
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Scientists now believe that all the continents were once a single
_______________.
Earth’s hot _______________separated the continents over time, and
_______________ formed between them.
For centuries, scientists _______________ that continents move.
Sir Francis Bacon noticed that continental margins looked as if they would fit
_______________.
Antonio Pellegrini noticed that identical _______________ were found on
continents separated by wide _______________.
Edward Suess claimed that the scratches and gouges from glaciers line up along
the _______________ of separated _______________. He also noted similarities
among plant _______________.
Suess hypothesized that long land _______________ had once connected the
_________________.
Frank B. Taylor explained that mountain ranges on distant continents
__________ _____.
Alfred Wegener proposed in __________ the theory of _______________
__________.
According to this theory, the continents were once united in one
“_______________”.
Wegener named this continent _______________.
He claimed that over time, Pangaea had broken into pieces and _______________
_______________.
The theory of continental drift was supported by _______________ from many
different fields of _______________.
Wegener explained why the _______________ of different continents seem to
_______________. He noted that _______________ ranges of similar age and
structure were now located on separated _______________. Fossil animals, such
as Mesosaurus, were found on _______________ on two different
_______________. The Mesosaurus could not _______________, and so Wegener
surmised that the continents were at one time _______________.
This means that the continents must have “______________” apart.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, years after Wegener’s death, evidence from
the _______________fossils and _______________ data suggested that younger
parts of the floor were located closer to the _______________ ridge.
These data prompted the theory of _______________ _______________, which
states that a _______________ within the earth dries the ocean floor
_______________ and allows new oceanic crust to form.
In the late 1960s, scientists combined information on seafloor _______________
and continental ________________ to propose the theory of _______________
_______________.