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Plate Tectonics Paradigm Shift Alfred Wegener Continental Drift

The Plate Tectonics Revolution was a major paradigm shift in geology that occurred in the 1960s when scientists widely accepted the theory of plate tectonics. Alfred Wegener first proposed the idea of continental drift in 1912, but it was controversial until the 1950s when new evidence emerged supporting plate tectonics over continental drift alone. Accepting plate tectonics fundamentally changed scientific understanding and thinking by explaining phenomena like climate regulation over long time periods, the location of mineral resources at plate boundaries, and how volcanic eruptions created fertile soils and geothermal energy sites.

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132 views

Plate Tectonics Paradigm Shift Alfred Wegener Continental Drift

The Plate Tectonics Revolution was a major paradigm shift in geology that occurred in the 1960s when scientists widely accepted the theory of plate tectonics. Alfred Wegener first proposed the idea of continental drift in 1912, but it was controversial until the 1950s when new evidence emerged supporting plate tectonics over continental drift alone. Accepting plate tectonics fundamentally changed scientific understanding and thinking by explaining phenomena like climate regulation over long time periods, the location of mineral resources at plate boundaries, and how volcanic eruptions created fertile soils and geothermal energy sites.

Uploaded by

Najira Hassan
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Plate tectonic Intellectual Revolution

1. What is the intellectual Revolution all about?


- In the late sixteenth century. Abraham Ortelius, in compiling the new world explorer maps noted that by carefully
considering the coast lines of the atlantic ocean it appeared that the Americas had been torn away from Europe and
Africa by, he theorized, earthquakes and floods.
- The Plate Tectonics Revolution was the scientific and cultural change which developed from the acceptance of
the plate tectonics theory. The event was a paradigm shift and scientific revolution.[1]
By 1966 most scientists in geology accepted the theory of plate tectonics.[2] The root of this was Alfred Wegener's
1912 publication of his theory of continental drift, which was a controversy in the field through the 1950s.[2] At that
point scientists introduced new evidence in a new way, replacing the idea of continental drift with instead a theory
of plate tectonics.[2] The acceptance of this theory brought scientific and cultural change which commentators called
the "Plate Tectonics Revolution".[2]

3. How did the revolution advance modern science and scientific thinking at the time?
- Plate tectonics are vital for moderating our climate over long timescales. Carbon, a greenhouse gas, is absorbed
out of the atmosphere by rock, causing cooling. The carbon makes its way to the seafloor where it sinks via
subduction zones where one continental plate slips under another. At a later time, this carbon dioxide is then
regurgitated by the Earth in volcanic plumes, from where it re-enters the atmosphere, causing warming again.
- Mineral resources are located at the plate margins and boundaries. These are exploited for human consumption.
Almost all minerals that we mine today have a direct or indirect relation to plate tectonics.

Volcanic eruptions due to plate movements have given rise to fertile soil favoring agricultural activities. Also some
active plate margins and volcanic regions provide geothermal energy.

Plate tectonics trapped atmospheric carbon dioxide into rocks and thereby stabilizing our climate, making Earth
habitable.

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