How did the continents and islands appear? What determines the name of the largest plates of the Earth? Where did our planet come from?
How did it all start?
Everyone has ever thought about the origin of our planet. For deeply religious people, everything is simple: God created the Earth in 7 days - period. They are unshakable in their confidence, even knowing the names of the largest lithospheric plates formed as a result of the evolution of the planet's surface. For them, the birth of our stronghold is a miracle, and no arguments of geophysicists, naturalists and astronomers can convince them.
Scientists, however, have a different opinion, based on hypotheses and assumptions. Ieeno they build guesses, put forward versions and come up with a name for everything. This also affected the largest plates of the Earth.
At the moment, it is not known for certain how our firmament appeared, but there are many interesting opinions. It was scientists who unanimously decided that once there was a single gigantic continent, which, as a result of cataclysms and natural processes, split into parts. Also, scientists came up with not only the name of the largest plates of the Earth, but also designated the small ones.
Theory on the brinkfiction
For example, Immanuel Kant and Pierre Laplace - scientists from Germany - believed that the Universe emerged from a gaseous nebula, and the Earth is a gradually cooling planet, the earth's crust of which is nothing more than a chilled surface.
Another scientist, Otto Yulievich Schmidt, believed that the Sun, when passing through a gas and dust cloud, took part of it with it. His version is that our Earth has never been a completely molten substance and was originally a cold planet.
According to the theory of the English scientist Fred Hoyle, the Sun had its own twin star, which exploded like a supernova. Almost all of the fragments were thrown to great distances, and a small number of those remaining around the Sun turned into planets. One of these fragments became the cradle of mankind.
Version as an axiom
The most common story of the origin of the Earth is as follows:
- About 7 billion years ago, the primary cold planet was formed, after which its bowels began to gradually warm up.
- Then, during the so-called "lunar era", red-hot lava poured out to the surface in gigantic quantities. This led to the formation of the primary atmosphere and served as an impetus for the formation of the earth's crust - the lithosphere.
- Thanks to the primary atmosphere, oceans appeared on the planet, as a result of which the Earth was covered with a dense shell, representing the outlines of oceanic depressions and continental protrusions. In those distant times, the area of water significantly prevailed over the areasushi. By the way, the earth's crust and the upper part of the mantle is called the lithosphere, which forms the lithospheric plates that make up the overall "look" of the Earth. The names of the largest plates correspond to their geographical location.
Giant split
How did continents and lithospheric plates form? About 250 million years ago, the Earth looked completely different than it does now. Then on our planet there was only one, just the same giant continent called Pangea. Its total area was impressive and equaled the area of all currently existing continents, including the islands. Pangea was washed on all sides by the ocean, which was called Panthalassa. This vast ocean occupied the entire remaining surface of the planet.
However, the existence of the supercontinent turned out to be short-lived. Processes were seething inside the Earth, as a result of which the substance of the mantle began to spread in different directions, gradually stretching the mainland. Because of this, Pangea first split into 2 parts, forming two continents - Laurasia and Gondwana. Then these continents gradually split into many parts, which gradually dispersed in different directions. In addition to new continents, lithospheric plates appeared. From the name of the largest plates, it becomes clear where giant faults formed.
The remnants of Gondwana are Australia and Antarctica known to us, as well as the South African and African lithospheric plates. It has been proven that these plates are stillgradually diverge - the rate of movement is 2 cm per year.
Fragments of Laurasia turned into two lithospheric plates - North American and Eurasian. At the same time, Eurasia consists not only of a fragment of Laurasia, but also of parts of Gondwana. The names of the largest plates that form Eurasia are Hindustan, Arabian and Eurasian.
Africa is directly involved in the formation of the Eurasian continent. Its lithospheric plate is slowly approaching the Eurasian one, forming mountains and uplands. It was because of this "union" that the Carpathians, the Pyrenees, the Ore Mountains, the Alps and the Sudetes appeared.
List of lithospheric plates
The names of the largest plates are as follows:
- South American;
- Australian;
- Eurasian;
- North American;
- Antarctic;
- Pacific;
- South American;
- Hindostanese.
Medium sized slabs are:
- Arabian;
- Nasca;
- Scotia;
- Filipino;
- Coconut;
- Juan de Fuca.
