The Living Machine
We live in an extraordinary era of exploration. We are now able to reach far out into space and deep down into the ocean. We have the advantage with technology such as computers and satellites. We can now simply understand the dynamic forces that shape our Earth. Our Earth is constantly destructing and recreating. It balances through a continuous rebirth cycle. The Earth’s dynamic shape can be summed up very simply-Transfer Of Energy. This "Big Idea" helps to explain many things such as plate tectonics, ocean floor spreading, continental drift, volcanoes, earthquakes, just about everything that happens naturally on earth. Plate Tectonics links together Alfred Wegener’s theory of continental drift and Harry Hess’s theory of ocean floor spreading. Alfred Wegener was a German meteorologist living in the first half of this century. He thought that long, long ago at one time all of the continents had been joined together as one gigantic land mass he called Pangaea. Finally after a long period of time the huge land mass had broken apart and slowly became what it is today and was believed to be still changing. Many scientists did not accept Wegener’s theory, but he kept on
collecting evidence to support it. Finally, fossils of the same organism on many different continents were found. This helped to support his idea even more then fitting the continents together like a puzzle. Glossopteris fossils, which are found in rocks, were found in South America, Australia, India, and Antarctica. These organisms were too large to be carried continent to continent by wind and were not tough enough to survive a trip across the ocean. This made scientist confused. One of the clearest sets of evidence is found in the rocks of Africa and South America. The rock formations in Africa lined up with matching ones in South America. Several years after Wegener had died, the theory of Continental Drift was finally accepted. It was very hard for many of the scientists to accept that the continents would have to plow through hard, solid ocean floor. During the 1950’s and 1960’s new equipment and methods enabled scientists to make better observations of the ocean floor. With special mapping techniques the scientists discovered a very large rift valley in the center of the ocean. These chains of underwater mountains are called the midocean ridges. This 80,000 kilometer long mountain chain is the largest in the world! Ocean floor spreading is when lava erupts from the rift valley that runs the length of the ridge. As the ocean floor moves away on both side of the ridge lava wells up and hardens. The hardened lava forms a new ocean floor. As a piece of the ocean floor moves it takes the continent with it. As the ocean floor
Some common words found in the essay are:
Continental Drift, Plate Tectonics, Transfer Energy, Pangaea Finally, Living Machine, India Antarctica, Energy Idea, ocean floor, Earth Earth, Wegener German, Fault California, floor spreading, ocean floor spreading, plate tectonics, continental drift, south america, heating cooling, continental drift ocean, theory continental, convection current, wegener’s theory, earth plate, drift ocean floor, earth plate tectonics, ocean floor moves,
Approximate Word count = 1057
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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