|
|
 |
|
47.8%ANMag Issue 26 Global Awareness
Continental Drift
By Ali Sadeeq, Staff Writer
Kano, Nigeria − Q88:17 & 20 "Do they not look at.....the earth and how it is spread out?”
The Oxford English Dictionary says; "Spreads means to send out in various directions so as to cover or extend over a larger area of space". God asked us in the above verse to examine our earth, and scrutinize how it was originally assembled in a single vast continent (The Pangaea) before it was spread out into the present seven continents. For 1200 years nobody looked carefully enough to realize that until 1858 when A. Snider suggested the idea of the continental drift after he had observed the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean. He realized that the sides can be made to fit together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, with the correspondence being too remarkable for it to pass as a coincidence. A study of the rocks, geological formations, fossils and living plants and animals on both sides of the Atlantic showed significant correspondence at the same latitude and it seemed evident that the two shores must once have been connected.
In 1912, Alfred Wegener produced an amazing body of evidence in favor of the view that the American land mass was once actually in contact with Europe and Africa but later broke away and drifted towards the west. He further showed that similar relations existed between Africa, Antarctica, Australia and India in Paleozoic times.
It is believed that South America and Africa began to separate about 100 million years ago (Cretaceous period) as did North America and Europe, thereby creating the Atlantic Ocean. The Indian Ocean began to open up during the Jurassic era. The Principal movement however, occurred during the cretaceous and tertiary period when the Indian sub-continent moved north and collided with Asia. And Australia became separated from Antarctica driving into the Indonesian archipelago. These movements drastically changed the physical geography of the continents as God says: Q21:31 "And we have set on the earth mountains standing firm, lest it should shake with them".
Thus, the westward drift of the American continent generates the compressive forces that produce the western cordilleran mountain range. And the northward drift of India crumpled a large area thus forming the Himalayas. The Alpine range was the result of north-south compression between Africa and Europe. And thus mountain chains maintained the balance the continent had lost after the break up. These kinds of movements of the continents are achieved because of the ability of the continental plates carrying them. When these plates moved apart or away from each other in the oceans it created a long, sinuous chains of volcanic mountains called the mid-ocean ridges and a new sea floor is created at the sites of these ridges. But if the movement occurred on land, deep valleys known as rift valleys formed like the Great Rift Valley that extends from Syria to Mozambique. In the case where plates did not move apart but collide or push against each other, regions called convergent plate margins formed. Along these margins one plate is usually forced to dive below the other, triggering the melting of the surrounding lithosphere, creating curve chains of volcanoes known as an arc. If two continental plates collide, this tends to raise the crust by faulting, folding or arching up layers of rock, and mountain building occurs as I gave the example above of the Himalayas.
The continental drift theory is backed up by several facts. Chief among them are: the biological proofs that tropical plants once grew in green land and that glaciers once covered the equatorial regions of Africa and Brazil. It also includes the distribution of marsupials in the southern hemisphere and the curious occurrence of distinct species in South America, South Africa, Australia and India. There is also the discovery of reptilian fossils in frozen Antarctica. It was also proven beyond doubt that the magnetic poles of the earth (North and South) were in quite different positions with regard to continents. A study of magnetic rocks at various period of geological history showed there had been outflows of Basalt and other igneous rocks containing magnetic materials. Those magnets show inconsistent rotation and drifting that point directly to movement of the continents carrying them.
It is calculated that most of the Continents drifted only about one inch (2.5cm) a year. Based on this, some scientists believe that in the future, the California coast may tear away from the main land and drift north towards Alaska. While Africa and North America may move further a part enlarging the Atlantic Ocean and Australia, drifting north, may collide with Asia.