What is the difference between a continental drift and plate tectonics?
1 Answer
Mainly the rate of motion of the continents, and the mechanism of the motion of the continents.
Explanation:
The main reason that will be found in textbooks is that continental drift was rejected because of a lack of a mechanism for the movement of the vast continents.
Plate tectonics proposes a mechanism for the movement of the continents. This mechanism is the proposed convection currents in the mantle that carry attached pieces of crust along with the moving magma in the mantle. The original theory of Continental Drift lacked a mechanism for the movement of the continents.
Other perhaps more important reasons that continental drift was rejected were fundamental theories and world views that the theory of continental drift contradicted.
The fundamental theory of uniform process ( uniformitarianism ) was contradicted by the theory of continental drift. Instead of the continents being static structures that were subject to the exact same geological process in the past as in the present, the theory of Continental drift proposed that the continents were subject to dynamic and rapid changes in position.
Plate tectonics removed most of this philosophical object to Continental Drift by proposing that the movements of the continents was very slow and uniform.
The main differences between Continental Drift and Plate tectonics are the rate and mechanisms of the movements of the continents.
