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6: Plate Tectonics

Last updated

Sep 9, 2023
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- 5.6: Metamorphism and Metamorphic Rocks
- 6.1: Plates

Callan Bentley, Karen Layou, Russ Kohrs, Shelley Jaye, Matt Affolter, and Brian Ricketts
OpenGeology

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In the late 1960s and early 1970s, geoscientific consensus gelled around an intriguing idea: that many different observations about our planet could be explained with a single model of Earth dynamics. The idea of “plate tectonics” put together old ideas about continental drift with new data showing seafloor spreading. The new theory was a revolutionary idea that made the distribution of volcanoes, earthquakes, continents, and topography make sense in a way that no idea had achieved before. Fifty years of additional data and testing have confirmed plate tectonics as the key idea in modern geology.

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