Search results for "Continental drift"
showing 3 items of 3 documents
Precambrian crustal evolution and continental drift
1981
One of the major questions of Precambrian research is whether present-day plate tectonic models can be applied to the evolution of the ancient continental crust or whether the tectonic style suggests a unidirectional and therefore non-uniformitarian development in response to gradual changes in the global thermal regime through time.
Back to Gondwanaland: can ancient vicariance explain (some) Indian Ocean disjunct plant distributions?
2015
Oceans, or other wide expanses of inhospitable environment, interrupt present day distributions of many plant groups. Using molecular dating techniques, generally incorporating fossil evidence, we can estimate when such distributions originated. Numerous dating analyses have recently precipitated a paradigm shift in the general explanations for the phenomenon, away from older geological causes, such as continental drift, in favour of more recent, long-distance dispersal (LDD). For example, the ‘Gondwanan vicariance’ scenario has been dismissed in various studies of Indian Ocean disjunct distributions. We used the gentian tribe Exaceae to reassess this scenario using molecular dating with mi…
Successes and failures in geodynamics
2001
Abstract The evolution of Earth models is reviewed and the open questions and problems are highlighted. Generally, evolution of science was not linear, but proceeded in “steps” of paradigms; where old ones remained within useful limits. “Geodynamic hypotheses”, while embedded into the general concepts of space and time, were often mutually exclusive and competing until the 1900s. Wegener's concept of continental drift was the first successful globally unifying view, but it was discarded by most Earth scientists. The “real” change of paradigms did not come before mid-century through geophysical observations in paleomagnetism, seismology, bathymetry, seafloor geology and dating, leading to th…