{{merge from|Continental drift}}
'''Plate tectonics''' is a geological model of the movement of [[continental plate]]s around the surface of the [[Earth]].
== Developing the Theory ==
Continental drift was hotly debated off and on for decades following Wegener's death before it was largely dismissed as being eccentric, preposterous, and improbable. However, beginning in the 1950s, a wealth of new evidence emerged to revive the debate about Wegener's provocative ideas and their implications. In particular, four major scientific developments spurred the formulation of the plate-tectonics theory: (1) demonstration of the ruggedness and youth of the ocean floor; (2) confirmation of repeated reversals of the Earth magnetic field in the geologic past; (3) emergence of the sea floor-spreading hypothesis and associated recycling of oceanic crust; and (4) precise documentation that the world's earthquake and volcanic activity is concentrated along oceanic trenches and submarine mountain ranges.
'''Plate tectonics''' is a geological model of the movement of [[continental plate]]s, known as [[Continental drift]], which explains how the [[Earth]] once had a [[Pangaea|single large land mass]] which broke into [[continent]]s that continued to separate, and that they still move slowly today.
== Ocean floor mapping ==
Beginning in the 1950s, scientists, using [[magnetism|magnetic]] instruments (magnetometers) adapted from airborne devices developed during [[World War II]] to detect [[submarine]]s, began recognizing odd magnetic variations across the ocean floor, showing reversals in the Earth's magnetic field over it's history. This finding, though unexpected, was not entirely surprising because it was known that basalt -- the iron-rich, volcanic rock making up the ocean floor-- contains a strongly magnetic mineral (magnetite) and can locally distort compass readings. This distortion was recognized by Icelandic mariners as early as the late 18th century. More important, because the presence of magnetite gives the basalt measurable magnetic properties, these newly discovered magnetic variations provided another means to study the deep ocean floor.
==Biblical ViewExplanations of continental drift ==
{{Bible quoteThe breaking up of one land mass into the separate continents was first proposed by the [[France|And God saidFrench]] [[creation scientist]] [[Antonio Snider]] in 1859, <ref name="Let the water under the sky be gathered to one placeSnider">Batten, Don, et. al., The Creation Answers Book, chapter 11: [http://creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter11.pdf What about continental drift?], p. 157, 2007</ref> who astutely observed an almost perfect match between the coastlines of western [[Africa]] and let dry ground appeareastern [[South America]], which suggested they had once been joined." And it The idea was so. God called later taken up by [[Alfred Wegener]] in the dry ground "land,1930s." <ref name=wcd> [http://www.scientus.org/Wegener-Continental-Drift.html Wegener and Continental Drift Theory]</ref> [[Atheists]] mocked the gathered waters he called "seasconcept for about 100 years (see [[scientific bias]]), until finally accepting its truth in the 1960s.<ref name="Snider" /> Although Snider and Wegener did not have an explanation of the cause of continental drift, the rigid discipline of [[creation science]] allied with [[Faith and science|book=faith and logic]] eventually enabled creation scientist to interpret [[Biblical scientific foreknowledge]] in order to explain how a relatively recent cataclysmic event caused the separation of the still-moving continents from one land mass. Genesis|chap=1|verses=:9-10}}This verse describes how all of dry land was in one factor leading creationist place.<ref>http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c001.html#1</ref> The continental drift occurring during the [[Antonio SniderGreat Flood]] to propose in 1859 that when the continents had originally been one and had moved apartearth was divided (Genesis 10:25).
{{Bible ref|Genesis|10|25}} says of [[Peleg]] that "in his time the earth was divided".
Some [[Young Earth creationism|creationists]] have seen this as referring to the tectonic plates moving<ref>Dawson, James P., [http://www.jpdawson.com/pelgnet/pelchap1/PELCHAP1.html In the Days of Peleg], 1998.</ref>.
However, many creationary scientists consider this verse to be referring to the division of the people at the [[Tower of Babel]], and not to plate tectonics.
Instead, they propose that most of the continental plate movement occurred during the [[flood geology|great flood]].
Dr. [[John Baumgardner]], a geophysicist then with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, developed a sophisticated 3D computer model of plate tectonics, and believes that his model works best as a rapid process during the Flood.<ref>Batten, Don, et. al., [http://www.creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter11.pdf What about continental drift?] Chapter 11 of the Creation Answers Book, 2007.</ref>
The magnetic stripe reversals are believed by mainstream scientists to have occurred over millions of years.However, creationist creation scientist Dr. [[Russell Humphreys]] predicted that magnetic reversals would be found with time frames of days or weeks, from having occurred during the Flood.In an example of a successful creationists creation science prediction, scientists subsequently found magnetic reversals that had taken place over the space of 15 days.<ref>Snelling, Andrew A., [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1233/ Fossil magnetism reveals rapid reversals of the earth’s magnetic field], ''Creation'' 13(3):46–50, June 1991.</ref> Atheistic [[science]] rejects the Biblical truth and instead applies [[liberal logic]] to concoct a [[junk science]] explanation based on the present observed rate of continental drift, which came to the tenuous conclusion that the continents that we know today were part of a single land mass about 250 million years ago. Clearly impossible because that predates [[creation]].
==References==
{{reflist|2}}
[[category:geology]]