Earth's Plates and Continents

The Earth's Crust

The earth's surface is covered by a thin layer of rock called "crust". Rocky crust standing above sea level forms island and continents. when two plates meet they may slide past each other one may go under another. New crust forms at ocean ridges and old crust melts into the mantle.

Moving Continents

Earth's continents can be rearranged to fit together like pieces of jigsaw puzzle. This idea made scientists think that they once formed a giant landmass, Pangea. This "supercontinent" broke up and the continents drifted, over million of years, to where they are now. This is continental drift, or plate tectonics, theory. Continents move as the Earth's plates move, sliding along a layer of soft mantle. 

                                                                            

                                                             










Plate tectonics is a scientific theory describing how continents move around on the mantle and how sea floor is produced and destroyed. Plate tectonics is able to account for many major geological features: mountain building, volcanoes, earthquakes, the world-wide distribution of fossils and the ages of rocks on continents and the sea floor.