Motions of the Earth Continental Drift

About the different motions of the earth that are going on around us astronomically and geologically including continental drift.

8 MOTIONS OF THE EARTH

Every passing hour brings the Solar System 43,000 mi. closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules--and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress.

--Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

1. CONTINENTAL DRIFT

The continental land masses sit on enormous slabs of rock that slide over the basaltic ocean floor very slowly, at the rate of 1 to 8 in. per year. Many geologists believe that all of earth's land broke away from one supercontinent, called Pangaea, about 230 million years ago. North America is gradually moving westward, away from Europe, at the rate of 3 in. per year. As a result, the Atlantic Ocean is now 120 ft. wider than it was when Columbus sailed it in 1492.

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