Article Details

Continental Drift Theory and Its Basic Considerations – A Review | Original Article

Vipul Garg*, in Journal of Advances and Scholarly Researches in Allied Education | Multidisciplinary Academic Research

ABSTRACT:

Astronomers take immense delight in enumerating the various motions that we partake even as we are apparently stationary on the surface of the earth. Geophysicists, the people who apply the principles of physics to investigate the earth, gleefully add that the surface of the terra firma itself is not steady but responds pliantly to many causes in the earth's interior and on its surface as well as to a few causes in the solar system. Occasionally, we can feel the motion of the earth's surface directly for brief periods, as during a major earthquake or when a heavy object moves near us. But ordinarily, we become aware of the restlessness of the earth's surface with the help of suitably sensitive seismometers and gravity meters or through repeat geodetic measurements which provide estimates of changes in the coordinates of points marked for the purpose. Recent geodetic data, notably the satellite-based GPS (Global Positioning System) observations, confirm that, even as you read these lines, the continents are moving at the rate of a few centimeters per year relative to a coordinate system rotating with the earth as well as relative to each other. The limited GPS data for the Indian subcontinent indicate that it is moving approximately northward at 5-6 cm per year currently relative to the earth fixed coordinate system.