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How did the continental drift happen?

well, for science, we are learning about earth. and we learned about the continental drift. it's when the continents, like north america and eurasia, drifted away from each other. i think it has something to do with convection currents, the mantle. i think it's because of volcanoes. but why?

Public Comments

1. I'm pretty sure it's because tectonic plates underneath continents are constantly moving, but they're moving further apart rather than together.
2. The universe is constantly expanding, every part of it, including Earth. The continents were no longer able to hold themselves together so the broke apart.
3. yes tectonic plates are what continents sit on that drift along the earth, when a earth quake happen thats when those tectonic plates rubb together and drift further apart.
4. plate movement is caused by convection within the mantle. the mantle, a semi-solid layer of rock, is heated from the extremely hot earth's core below it. convection currents pull certain plates away from one another, and others towards one another. over millions of years, they moved from Pangaea, the super-continent, into the continents of today. continental drift is an outdated theory, however, and has been updated to plate tectonics (the movement of plates rather than just continents).
5. it is actually caused by tectonic plates under the earths crust and each year the move a little and a little more and some times the run into each other causing earth quakes or tsunamis and if the move a little bit each ear they are eventually going to move away from each other
6. Earth is liquid inside. The liquid is a mixture of hot, melted metals and other elements and constantly moves because of temperature changes, just like air and water currents. The Earth's crust rests on the liquid interior and because the liquid moves, the crust moves as well. Since the crusts consists of individual plates, these plates move against each other and collide or subdue other plates. This is why continents change and move and how mountain ranges such as the Andes, Alps, Himalaya and Rocky Mountains came to be.
7. <<How did the continental drift happen?>> It's still carrying on. Taking the Atlantic Ocean as an example, there's a feature in the middle known as the Mid Atlantic Ridge. There's a deep valley running along beside that, and that area's volcanic. It's more a volcanic seepage than the explosive sort of volcanism. Anyhow, that keeps pumping out magma which, in effect, forms new ocean bed. This is causing the Atlantic Ocean to widen, and that's now pushing Europe and North America (and Africa and South America) further away from each other. Similarly events are also carrying on elsewhere.
8. convection currents in the asthenosphere (which is a layer in the mantle) moves the plates in the lithoshere (which is also a layer in the mantle) this moved the continents apart and they are still moving and will create another pangea on the opposite side of the earth from the last pangea.