Palawan island is one of the Philippines’ best assets.
It houses diverse natural resources
that are incomparable to other islands of the country. This mark a distinguishable difference of
the islands in the archipelago. Based on studies, Palawan island in terms of natural composition
is the same with Borneo than the other islands of the Philippines. Have you ever wondered
how two land masses separated by vast bodies of water have the same natural
composition?
There are various proofs that support plate movement. These include the fitting of current
continents, locations of fossils, reconstructions of past continents, as well as glacial, and
paleomagnetic data.
Fig. 16. The supercontinent Pangaea separated by the Tethys Ocean, and the latitudinal
differences marked by varying past climates.
Continental Fit
Even before Wegener’s hypothesis, several people already noticed that some
continents remarkably fit especially Africa and South America. Wegener noticed this
pattern on the coastlines of opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. His claim was
challenged by other scientists because he used the present- day coastlines which are
regularly changed by erosional and depositional processes. Scientists later on
determined that the use of the seaward edge of the continental shelf as a continent’s
boundary are the better way to estimate the fit between continents.
Glacial Deposits and Fossil Records
The first of Wegener’s pieces of evidence for his continental drift theory is the
rocks dating 200 million years ago in several continents showing the past climates in
different areas during that time, as summarized by Valentine and Moore. While glacial
deposits indicate a large ice sheet encompassing broad areas of today’s southern
continents, evaporites and sandstones marked an ancient desert, and carbonate and
coal deposits delineated equatorial regions (Fig. 16). Examples of these include coals
(which are produced by tropical forests) and glacial deposits found at the North Pole
and the equator respectively.
Fig. 17. The fossils of the Gondwana rock succession and the continents in which
they were found.
Related to these coals is the fossil assemblage dubbed as the Glossopteris
flora, which is a seed fern that is characterized by its leaves. This assemblage is
scattered
among five continents, particularly constituting the Gondwana rock succession, yet in
all of them, it is uniform. In accordance with its namesake, the Gondwana rock
succession is seen exclusively in the Gondwana continents. It is composed of the
Glossopteris flora, preserved vertebrates, glacial deposits, and terrestrial sediments with
coal. Intrusions of kimberlites and a layer of basalt capping the deposit were also
observed (Fig. 17).
Of the vertebrates in
succession, of interest were the
remains of Mesosaurus,
Lystrosaurus, and
Cynognathus. The Mesosaurus is a
prehistoric, carnivorous reptile that
lived in fresh and brackish waters
and was dug up in South Africa and
Brazil. It is assumed that it could not
have swum across the present
Atlantic. The Lystrosaurus, a
herbivorous reptile that lived in
fresh waters, was found in Africa,
India, and Antarctica. The
Cynognathus, a small reptile that is
considered a link between reptiles
and mammals, was unearthed in
Africa and South America.
The plotting of fossil
assemblages of the same kind of
land animals and plants in several
localities shows that they indeed
must have lived in a supercontinent,
since these animals could not have
traversed a large ocean. Moreover, current assemblages among the continents possess
key differences, indicating that the fossilized organisms had to have crossed the
continents via land bridges to be homogeneous.
Paleomagnetic Data
The land formations and geology of the continents, particularly the arrangement of
orogenic belts and geologic structures, were the same. A few examples include those of
the Appalachian Mountains and Caledonian Mountains and the Rift Valleys of East
Africa. It is no surprise that the continents’ margins fit like a jigsaw puzzle, such as that
of Africa and South America (Fig. 18).
This, however, could not have been sufficiently proven at Wegener’s time, which
is why his ideas were frowned upon until Arthur Holmes’ discovery in 1931 about Earth’s
radioactivity and its convection currents. His work provided a method by which continents
could move across Earth’s surface. There was still much dispute among the scientific
community until advances in paleomagnetism in the 1960s from research done during
the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958) showed evidence supporting these
claims. Through geophysical techniques, the seafloor was mapped, providing rock and
sediment patterns and magnetic data. Central to the analysis of the magnetic data is
appreciating how Earth’s magnetic field functions much similar to a bar magnet, where
the planet’s magnetic poles correspond to the poles of a magnet (Fig. 19).
Fig. 19. Illustration of Earth functioning like a bar magnet
When lava on Earth’s surface cools under the Curie point (a specific temperature
at which materials change or lose their magnetism), the crystallizing magnetite is
imprinted with a magnetic signature identical to Earth’s magnetic field at that point in time.
This orientation is preserved as the lava fully crystallizes into rock. The alignment of these
forming crystals, as well as residue magnetite incorporated as sedimentary rock,
documents the orientation of the planet’s magnetic field. It is important to note however
that Earth’s magnetic field is not static, rather, it frequently switches polarities. These
changes are referred to as magnetic [Link] activity is evident in a mid-
oceanic ridge near Iceland (Fig.20), where the magnetic stripes are symmetrical to the
ridge axis. The sections with color symbolize magnetic reversals, while those between
them depict normal magnetic polarity.
Fig. 20 The magnetic signatures in the seafloor near Iceland.
When rocks dating to 200 million years ago from several continents were analyzed,
their magnetic north was found to be discordant (or have undergone apparent
polar wandering). However, when they were compared to the continents’ supposed
original arrangement, the magnetic poles of the rocks matched. This allowed rocks to
record different paleomagnetic orientations from the different locations of their plates
through time.
● Glacial deposits indicate a large ice sheet encompassing broad areas of
today’s southern continents, evaporites and sandstones marked an
ancient desert, and carbonate and coal deposits delineated equatorial
regions
● Current fossil assemblages among the continents possess key differences,
indicating that the fossilized organisms had to have crossed the continents via
land bridges to be homogeneous.
● Curie point is a specific temperature at which materials change or lose their
magnetism
● Earth’s magnetic field is not static, rather, it frequently switches polarities.
These changes are referred to as magnetic reversals.