FOSSIL EVIDENCE

There are many examples of fossils found on separate continents and nowhere else, suggesting the continents
were once joined. If Continental Drift had not occurred, the alternative explanations would be:

 The species evolved independently on separate continents – contradicting Darwin’s theory of evolution.

 They swam to the other continent/s in breeding pairs to establish a second population.

Image: From This Dynamic Earth: The Story of Plate Tectonics p8

Remains of Mesosaurus, a freshwater crocodile-like reptile that lived during the early Permian (between 286 and
258 million years ago), are found solely in Southern Africa and Eastern South America. It would have been
physiologically impossible for Mesosaurus to swim between the continents. This suggests that South America
and Africa were joined during the Early Permian.

Cynognathus is an extinct mammal-like reptile. The name literally means ‘dog jaw’. Cynognathus was as large as
a modern wolf and lived during the early to mid Triassic period (250 to 240 million years ago). It is found as
fossils only in South Africa and South America.
  
Lystrosaurus

Lystrosaurus - which literally means ‘shovel reptile’ - was dominant on land in the early Triassic, 250 million years
ago. It is thought to have been herbivorous and grew to approximately one metre in length, with a stocky build
like a pig. Fossils of Lystrosaurus are only found in Antarctica, India and South Africa.

Glossopteris was a woody, seed-bearing shrub or tree, named after the Greek descripton of ‘tongue’ – a
description of the shape of the leaves. Some reached 30m tall. It evolved during the Early Permian (299 million
years ago) and went on to become the dominant species throughout the period, not becoming extinct until the
end of the Permian. Fossils are found in Australia, South Africa,South America, India and Antarctica.

When the continents of the southern hemisphere are re-assembled into the single land mass of Gondwanaland,
the distribution of these four fossil types form linear and continuous patterns of distribution across continental
boundaries.

Glacial deposits

Continental Drift

Alfred Wegener, in the first three decades of this century, and DuToit in the 1920s and 1930s
gathered evidence that the continents had moved. They based their idea of continental drift on
several lines of evidence: fit of the continents, paleoclimate indicators, truncated geologic features,
and fossils.

fit of the continents

As far back as the voyages of exploration of the New World in the 16th and 17th centuries, as
rudimentary maps were produced, scholars had noted the complementary shapes of the coastlines
of Europe and Africa with North and South America. Some had even wildly proposed that the
continents had been split apart.
paleoclimate indicators

Wegener was a meteorologis and geologist. Among other things, he studied paleoclimate indicators
in sedimentary strata. He studied the geologic literature and recognized that upper Paleozoic
(Carboniferous and Permian) strata in northwestern Europe strata contained extensive coals that
could only have formed in a hot wet climate like the present equatorial region. In rocks of the same
age in equatorial Africa he knew there were glacial tillites. These indicated to Wegener that the
continents must have moved (Europe from near the equator, Africa from the polar region into the
equatorial region).

far-flung fossils

He was also aware of certain problems that had been noted by paleontologists. Fossils of a shallow
water reptile, Mesosaurus, were found in both Africa and South America even though they could not
swim across the Atlantic Ocean. Fossils of a family of seed ferns, Glossopteris, were found in Africa,
South America, India, and Antarctica. These and a number of other fossil groups had identical
populations separated by thousands of kilometers of ocean. It seemed impossible to account for
such stunning parallel evolution. Paleontologists called on implausible land bridges connecting the
continents. But Wegener argued that rising and falling land bridges in the oceans were not likely
considering the observation that the ocean crust was made of denser (basaltic) rock than the
continents. He argued that this denser oceanic crust could not rise up above sea level. Likewise, if
the land bridge was less dense (granitic) continental rock it would be too light to sink into the denser
rock below.

truncated geologic features

Wegener also noticed that there were major mountain building event sin the northern Appalachians
and in northwestern Europe of the same age. The Acadian Orogeny in the northern Appalachians
and the Caledonide orogeny in northern Great Britain and Scandinavia occurred during the Devonian
period yielding extensive folding, faulting, igneous intrusion, metamorphism, and the development
of major sedimentary features (clastic wedges) from the erosion of the rising mountains. If North
America and Europe are reconstructed into a nice fit the Caledonides of northwestern Europe are
seen to be a continuation of the Appalachians. The Paraña basalts of South America and the
Etendeka basalts of Africa were both extruded about 130 million years ago on the conjugate margins
of these continents and both are cut off at the coast as if cut in half.

These and other clues indicated that the continents had once been together as part of a larger
supercontinent. Wegener first presented his ideas in 1912 and they were elaborated with successive
editions of his book, The Origin of Continents and Oceans, through 1929. In it he described a
supercontinent that he called Pangea, containing all of the present major continental masses.
DuToit's book, Our Wandering Continents, was published in 1937. It updated the continuing work of
Wegener and his own. DuToit proposed, in addition to Pangea, a southern supercontinent which
existed in the Paleozoic, made up of Africa, South America, Antarctica, India, and Australia, called
Gondwanaland.
The hypothesis of continental drift was read with interest but also with much skepticism because
there was no plausible mechanism to account for continental motions. Basic intuition wonders how
a continent can be slid across the ocean against tremendous frictional forces. Wegener believed in
the isostacy concept (continents afloat in the mantle) and that the problem was more akin to
pushing an iceberg across the ocean. Nevertheless there were no known forces of sufficient
magnitude to account for continental motions.

Mantle Convection Proposed

The British geologist Arthur Holmes suggested a possible mechanism in the late 1920's. Radioactive
heat generated in the Earth's interior might cause the Earth's interior to heat up unless there was
some mechanism to remove the heat. Holmes proposed that hot mantle, behaving as a very viscous
fluid, would rise by convection toward the surface where it would cool and contract (become
denser) and then descend back deep into the Earth. There it would heat up and expand (become less
dense) and then rise again. Might these proposed convection currents provide a driving force for
continental drift?

Paleomagnetism

When rocks are formed small amounts of magnetic minerals, like magnetite and hematite, are
incorporated. The magnetism of the magnetic minerals is aligned with the Earth's magnetic field
when the rock is formed. The rock retains, in many cases, a permanent record of this field direction.
The Earth's magnetic field can tell us the direction to the poles from the familiar compass direction.
But the lines of force also are inclined to the Earth's surface at varying angles (vertical upward at the
south pole, less and less steep moving toward the equator, horizontal at the equator, then
progressively steeper downward moving from the equator to the north pole where it is vertical
downward. The inclination of the magnetic field is proportional to the latitude. Paleomagnetic study
of ancient rocks can determine the latitude at which a rock forms and the direction to the North or
South Pole. Therefore, paleomagnetists can determine north-south motions and rotations of
continents. Paleomagnetists in the 1950s and 1960s (Runcorn, Irving, Creer, Cox, and others) were
studying magnetism in rocks. They found that the magnetism recorded in old rocks usually did not
coincide with the present direction of the Earth's magnetic field. Rocks of a given age from one
continent all contain magnetizations that point in a common direction (normally not toward the
present north pole). The apparent position of the pole is progressively farther from the present
north pole as recorded by older and older rocks. Had the north pole moved over time or had the
continents moved? When the apparent polar wander paths from separate continents are compared
we can see that they are different. So the continents must have moved independent of one another.
Furthermore the paleomagnetic results from upper Paleozoic rocks fit very well with the
observations and reconstructions of Wegener and DuToit. The latitudes implied by the
magnetization of late Paleozoic age rocks from the various continents are consistent with the
latitude that Wegener place them at in his Pangea reconstruction.

From the above it appeared that continental drift must have occurred, but there was no mechanism
that could account for pushing the continents across the ocean crust. Therefore it was not taken
seriously by most.

During the 1950's paleomagnetists also discovered that the magnetization in some layers of volcanic
rock pointed toward the North Pole and other layers were magnetized toward the South Pole. They
had discovered that the Earth's magnetic field reverses occasionally.

Plate Tectonics

Harry Hess was a U.S. Naval officer during World War II on a destroyer escorting ship convoys to
England. His ship towed a sensitive magnetometer in an attempt to detect the steel hulls of Nazi
submarines that preyed on Allied shipping. He noticed that as the ship sailed over the mid-Atlantic
Ridge the magnetometer recorded small fluctuations in magnetic field intensity. After the war Hess
went to Princeton and studied this phenomenon. He suggested that these fluctuations were due to
varying magnetizations of the ocean crust. The magnetometer recorded primarily the direction and
intensity of the Earth's magnetic field but also could detect changes in the magnetization of the
ocean crust. Apparently the ship sailed over some sections of ocean crust that were magnetized such
that they complemented the Earth's magnetic field therefore making the recorded intensity
stronger. Other sections must be magnetized in such a way as to subtract from the Earth's magnetic
field strength. The sections with complementary magnetization must be sections of the crust
magnetized with normal polarity like the present field of the Earth. The sections of the ocean crust
whose magnetism subtracts from the main field of the Earth must have been magnetized and
formed during periods of reverse polarity.

Vine and Matthews (1963) mapped the varying magnetic intensity on one side of the midocean
ridge. They reported linear stripes of alternately higher and lower magnetic field intensity, marine
magnetic anomalies, parallel to the midocean ridge. They were the first to completely state the
hypothesis of seafloor spreading. They believed that ocean crust was continuously created at the
midocean ridges by igneous intrusion and volcanic activity; the newly-formed crust then breaks in
two and spreads away from the ridge. The newly forming strips of crust become magnetized
alternately in normal or reverse polarity as the Earth's magnetic field reverses.

Pitman and Heirtzler (1966) mapped the magnetic anomalies across a section of the Pacific-Antarctic
Ridge and the Reykjanes Ridge south of Iceland. They showed that the magnetic anomalies were
symmetric about the ridge; the same pattern of changing intensity was found on both sides of the
midocean ridge. This was the conclusive evidence for the seafloor spreading hypothesis.

T.J. Wilson (1965) proposed and Lynn Sykes (1967) confirmed transform faults offsetting midocean
ridge segments. Seismic evidence gathered from earthquakes by Sykes showed strike-slip (side-by-
side) motion on the transform faults, no earthquakes on the fracture zones, normal fault (stretching)
earthquakes on midocean ridges, and thrust fault (compression) earthquakes near deep ocean
trenches. Other seismologists showed that there was a descending plane of earthquakes (Benioff
Zone) descending from the trenches. Volcanic arcs like the Andes and Cascades mountains and
volcanic island arcs like the Mariannas and Aleutians lie over Benioff Zones, set back from deep
ocean trenches. The deep ocean trenches were then locations where the ocean crust was being
subducted, or returned back into the Earth's interior.

Wilson (1963) showed that islands generally got older the farther they were from the midocean
ridges. He set the stage for the understanding of hot spots, chains of volcanic islands in the middle of
plates, that get progressively older away from the midocean ridge, suggesting that they form as their
plate moves slowly over plumes of hot rising mantle material. The Hawaiian islands are one of the
best examples of a hotspot track.

The theory of plate tectonics offers a mechanism, acceptable to the physics community, that can
account for the continental motions described by Wegener, DuToit, and the paleomagnetists. It
accounts for all of the major features of the ocean basin and the surface of the Earth in general.
Beginning in 1966-1967 it has become overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community. It is
the primary predictive tool for understanding such ongoing processes as volcanoes and earthquakes.

Central to plate tectonics is the understanding of the linkage between seafloor spreading and
currents of upwelling hot mantle rock that yield the molten rock that solidifies as new crust at the
midocean ridges. The midocean ridge system is the main avenue for the release of heat from the
interior of the Earth. Upheaval of mountains is the result of continental collisions, such as the
formation of the Appalachians when Pangea formed by the collision of Gondwana and Laurasia.
Continental collisions are in turn the result of tectonic plate motions which result from seafloor
spreading which releases heat from the Earth's interior.
Mid-Ocean Ridges:
Magnetics & Polarity
How Fast is the Mid-Ocean Ridge
Spreading?

When lava gets erupted at the mid-ocean ridge axis it cools and turns into
hard rock. As it cools it becomes permanently magnetized in the direction
of the Earth’s magnetic field. Magnetometers, towed near the sea surface
behind research ships or mounted on submarines like Alvin, measure the
magnetic anomalies or “wiggles” that record the changes in magnetization
of the volcanic sea floor.

Less than 60 years ago, scientists discovered that the Earth’s magnetic
field has reversed its polarity (direction) hundreds of times during the past
several hundred million years. A polarity reversal means that the magnetic
North flips to where we know the South Pole is. At the mid-ocean ridge
spreading axis, these flips in the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field are
recorded in the magnetization of the lava. This creates a symmetrical
pattern of magnetic stripes of opposite polarity on either side of mid-ocean
ridges.
These patterns of stripes provide the history of seafloor spreading.
Geophysicists can read these patterns from the magnetic anomalies they
measure with a magnetometer. Where the magnetic wiggles, or anomalies,
are broader, the spreading rate has been faster. At slow spreading ridges,
the anomalies are squeezed tighter together, but the basic patterns are
quite similar so scientists can correlate or relate the magnetic wiggles to
different parts of the global mid-ocean ridge.

DEEPER DISCOVERY
AXIAL RIDGE
 DEEPER DISCOVERY
TYPES OF RIDGES
 DEEPER DISCOVERY
FAST/SLOW SPREADING
 Magnetic Reversal
Polarity reversal occurs when the rear faces of solitary waves of depression steepen, since the
internal solitary wave trough propagates more slowly than its tail as it moves into shallow
water.
From: Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences (Third Edition), 2019
Related terms:
 Brunhes Chron
 Subduction
 Anomaly
 Geomagnetism
 Rotating Generator
 Magnetic Anomaly
 Polarity
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MAGNETOSTRATIGRAPHY
S.G. Lucas, in Encyclopedia of Geology, 2005
The Geomagnetic Polarity Time-Scale
Magnetic reversals have occurred frequently but irregularly during Earth history. The process
of reversal seems to take about 4000–5000 years. The current state of the magnetic field (in
which a compass needle points towards the north magnetic pole) has persisted for the last
700 000 years and is referred to as an interval of normal polarity. Geologists refer to periods
when the poles had switched positions (so that a compass needle would have pointed to the
south magnetic pole) as intervals of reversed polarity.
The first attempts at magnetostratigraphy were made in the 1950s, especially by the Russian
scientist A N Khramov. Since the 1960s, geologists have made a concentrated effort to
decipher the history of the Earth's magnetic field, and this research is ongoing.
During much of Earth history, the magnetic field reversed frequently (Figure 1). This has
been the case throughout most of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, but during the Late
Carboniferous and most of the Permian, an interval of about 70 Ma, the magnetic field was
stable (reversed). The pre-Carboniferous nature of the magnetic field is still not as well
understood as its later history.
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Figure 1.  The polarity-bias superchrons during the last 700 Ma. The polarity history is not well

understood before about 350 Ma, and since then it has been mixed (many magnetic reversals) except for two

long intervals of polarity stability: the Permo-Carboniferous reversed and the Cretaceous normal superchrons.

Because of plate tectonics and the subduction of oceanic crust, the oldest seafloor preserved

on Earth dates from the beginning of the Late Jurassic, about 160 Ma ago. Geologists have
determined the magnetic polarities of rocks from the seafloor, which are lavas for which
some numerical ages have been calculated. Bands of cooled lava on the seafloor adjacent to
spreading ridges preserve magnetic stripes that are symmetrical about the ridge. This
seafloor magnetization provides a template that geologists have used to plot the magnetic-
polarity history of the Earth back to the beginning of the Late Jurassic (Figure 2). This
polarity history is referred to as the geomagnetic-polarity time-scale (GPTS). It provides a
globally consistent pattern of normal- and reversed-polarity intervals that can be used to
estimate the ages of rocks and the events that they record during the last 160 Ma of Earth
history.
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Figure 2.  The global polarity time-scale for the last 160 Ma is a well-established and widely accepted

record of magnetic-polarity reversals since the beginning of the Late Jurassic.

In the history of the Earth's magnetic field, a superchron is an interval of tens of millions of
years during which the polarity remains constant. There are two well-established
superchrons: the Cretaceous normal superchron, from about 118 Ma to 83 Ma ago, and the
Permo-Carboniferous (also called Kiaman, after a place in Australia) reversed superchron,
from about 316 Ma to 262 Ma ago (Figure 1).
Early studies of magnetostratigraphy named the magnetic-polarity intervals (then called
‘epochs’) after scientists and mathematicians (Brunhes, Matuyama, Gauss, Gilbert) and the
polarity events after the places where they were first identified (Jaramillo, Mammoth,
Olduvai). However, it was subsequently realized that there are so many intervals (now called
‘chrons’) and events (now called ‘subchrons’) that numbering them is simpler than assigning
them names. Chron numbers are followed by an ‘n’ or an ‘r’ to indicate whether they are
normal or reversed.
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Understanding Reflection Coefficient
Enwenode Onajite, in Seismic Data Analysis Techniques in Hydrocarbon Exploration, 2014
Polarity Reversal
A polarity reversal is a seismic amplitude anomaly that can indicate the presence of
hydrocarbon in a seismic section. Polarity reversals occur when water-saturated sand has a
higher acoustic impedance than the overlying shale (shale has a lower acoustic impedance as
shown in Figure 14.19), but hydrocarbon sand is softer (has a lower acoustic impedance than
both the water-saturated sand and the overlying shale) (Figures 14.17–14.19).

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Figure 14.19.  Acoustic impedance response of ‘polarity reversal’.

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Figure 14.17.  Reflection response of ‘polarity reversal’.

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 Figure 14.18.  Model of a ‘polarity reversal’ response, after M. Bacon et al. (2003), 3-D seismic

interpretation.

The top sand will have a higher acoustic impedance (hard loop) below the fluid contact (top
of the water-saturated sand) and low acoustic impedance (soft loop) above it, with polarity
change at the contact. This change in acoustic impedance from an increase to a decrease
results in polarity of the seismic response being reversed as opposed to the normal SEG
convention.
For a polarity reversal to occur, the shale has to have a lower acoustic impedance than the
water-saturated sand, and both are required to have a higher acoustic impedance than oil/gas
sand.
Note that compaction causes the acoustic impedance of sands and shales to increase with age
and depth, but it does not happen uniformly. For younger shallow clastic rocks, shales have a
higher acoustic impedance than younger sands, but this reverses at depth; for deeper clastic
rocks, sands have a higher acoustic impedance than older shales.
Figure 14.20 (right) are the generalized curves showing how the acoustic impedances of gas
sands, water sands and shales increase with depth.

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Figure 14.20.  Normal compaction curve.

Source: Dim Spots in Seismic Images as a Hydrocarbon Indicators by Alistar R. Brown.

Bright spots occur above depth A, where there is a large contrast in shale and gas–sand
impedances but a modest difference between shale and water–sand impedances.
Polarity reversals occur between depth A and B, where the water–sand impedance is greater
than shale impedance, but the gas–sand impedance is less than shale impedance.
Dim spots occur between depth B, where the three impedance curves converge and there is
only a small impedance contrast between shale and either type of sand, brine-filled or gas-
filled.
The dim spot shows a strong oil–water contact reflection, but the reflection from the top of
the oil sand is of low amplitude and difficult to see because it is a dim spot.
Left of Figure 14.20, are examples of seismic reflectivity for each of the three sand/shale
impedance regimes, taken from dim spots in seismic images as hydrocarbon indicators.
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The movement of the plates creates three types of tectonic boundaries: convergent, where plates
move into one another; divergent, where plates move apart; and transform, where plates move
sideways in relation to each other.

Tectonic Plates and Plate Boundaries

1.Convergent boundaries: where two plates are colliding. Subduction zones occur when one or
both of the tectonic plates are composed of oceanic crust. ...

2.Divergent boundaries – where two plates are moving apart. ...

3.Transform boundaries – where plates slide passed each other.

What are the different types of plate tectonic

boundaries?
There are three kinds of plate tectonic boundaries:
divergent, convergent, and transform plate
boundaries.
This image shows the three main types of plate boundaries: divergent, convergent, and transform. Image courtesy of the U.S.
Geological Survey. Download image (jpg, 76 KB).

The Earth’s lithosphere, which includes the crust and upper mantle, is made up of a series of
pieces, or tectonic plates, that move slowly over time.

A divergent boundary occurs when two tectonic plates move away from each other. Along
these boundaries, earthquakes are common and magma (molten rock) rises from the Earth’s
mantle to the surface, solidifying to create new oceanic crust. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge and Pacific
Ring of Fire are two examples of divergent plate boundaries.

When two plates come together, it is known as a convergent boundary. The impact of the
colliding plates can cause the edges of one or both plates to buckle up into a mountain ranges or
one of the plates may bend down into a deep seafloor trench. A chain of volcanoes often forms
parallel to convergent plate boundaries and powerful earthquakes are common along these
boundaries.

At convergent plate boundaries, oceanic crust is often forced down into the mantle where it
begins to melt. Magma rises into and through the other plate, solidifying into granite, the rock that
makes up the continents. Thus, at convergent boundaries, continental crust is created and
oceanic crust is destroyed.

Two plates sliding past each other forms a transform plate boundary. One of the most famous
transform plate boundaries occurs at the San Andreas fault zone, which extends underwater.
Natural or human-made structures that cross a transform boundary are offset—split into pieces
and carried in opposite directions. Rocks that line the boundary are pulverized as the plates grind
along, creating a linear fault valley or undersea canyon. Earthquakes are common along these
faults. In contrast to convergent and divergent boundaries, crust is cracked and broken at
transform margins, but is not created or destroyed.