How does the density difference between continental and oceanic crust create oceans and continents?
The continents can be thought of as thick blocks of crust floating on the mantle much as icebergs float in water. Oceanic crust floats on the mantle but not as high as the continental crust. As a result, it is covered with water—the oceans. 11. Describe Continental Drift and relate it to the supercontinent Pangaea. In 1912 Alfred Wegener, a German geophysicist, combined multiple lines of evidence and suggested that in the past all of the continents had formed one supercontinent (which he named Pangaea) that began breaking up about 180 million years ago. He proposed that the continents move (or drift) over time. He called his hypothesis Continental Drift. Evidence for the movement of the continents included the fact that the coasts of the continents on opposite sides of the Atlantic fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and that rocks and fossils match each other on opposite sides of the Atlantic. 12. Why was Continental Drift not widely accepted? Continental Drift was not widely
