can anyone convince me that the theory of continental drift is true?

Answer 1

lets see.......
the same type of species of animal fossils have been found on two different continents that are far away from eachother
some of these fossils have been found to be the same animal part of it found in one country and one part found in another

if you look at a map places like south america and arficas edges seem to fit together (south america's east side and africa's west side)

tectonic plates shift and earthquakes prove that

there are a lot of reasons why continental drift can be proven these are just a couple

Answer 2

Through the 1950s and 1960s, a lot of scientists collected a lot of rocks and measured their "remanent magnetism" in a lot of different ways. This is very finicky and imprecise, so you need tons of results to average out the errors, but if the magnetic dipole frozen into the rock is the same direction as the present field, the continent probably hasn't moved. If the frozen dipole is different, you can work out how the continent has moved (rotated, or moved north or south) since the rock was formed.

All the results from all the continents in the world gave quite a consistent picture of the various movements, which agreed with the picture drawn from fossil remains and similarities of rocks. I collected some rocks from Aden, whose results showed that that the Arabian peninsula had rotated about eight degrees anticlockwise since the rocks were formed three million years earlier.

Geophysicists also understand the mechanism which causes the movement. So if you aren't convinced by now, nothing will convince you.

Answer 3

Continental drift is caused by lava riseing in the ocean and causing ridges, the ridge emerges and push back the former ridge then harden and so on. The Continents drift about an inch every year. There use to be a major continent named pangea that broke apart because of continential drift.
Evidence:
If you look at a map you can place the the continents together by the matching mountian peaks of another continent.
There has been discovery of dinosaur fossils on more than one continent of the same species that had no way of traveling to the other continent, how did they get there.
Also there are mineral deposit suchas coal, calcuim, or salt in an enviroment that it can not form within because of temperature proving that the continents had to be closer or further from the equator. Also they match up with other deposits on different continents.

Answer 4

There was a ton of very good evidence of continental drift (as laid out very nicely by all the previous answers) - but since then continental drift has been proven to be 100% true. How? GPS satelites. They have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that, for example, North America is moving west and southeast (east coast moves west, west coast moves south-southest) by a few centimeters each year.

The other evidence was very convincing - but this is rock solid, as GPS satelites do not lie.

Answer 5

the Earth's plates are always moving, if only inches. This is proven by earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. Our continents are attatched to the Earth's plates, therefore, as Earth's plates move, so do our continents

Answer 6

the beginning- one contenent
proof they moved- a mountain is cut off at the South ameriacn ocean, and continues in Europe

Answer 7

Yeah. Go ask our good friend.......
....was it Alfred Wagner? something like that. my class just finished that unitl like a month ago:)