would I end up in China?
If you are in North America and you were able to dig through the Earth (which is impossible due to such things as pressure, the molten outer core, and solid inner core), you would end up in the Indian Ocean, far from landmasses. If you were really lucky, you might end up on a tiny island, but you’re surely not going to end up in China. The points at opposite sides of the Earth are called antipodes. Most antipodes of Europe fall into the Pacific Ocean.
When do earthquakes occur?
Earthquakes occur when the plates that comprise the Earth’s crust rub against each other. We have mountains created when these gigantic plates collide and large trenches created when one plate slides underneath another.
What is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge?
We don’t get to appreciate the beauty of this huge mountain range because it’s located at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean (with one exception: Iceland is a part of the ridge). It is part of one of the longest mountain ranges in the world. The ridge is a crack between tectonic plates where new ocean floor is being created as magma flows up from under the Earth. As more crust is created, it pushes the older crust farther away. The new crust at the ridge piles up to form mountains and then begins to move across the bottom of the ocean. Because the Earth can’t get larger as more crust is created, the crust eventually has nowhere to go except back into the Earth. This is where subduction occurs.
What is subduction?
When two tectonic plates meet and collide, crust must either be lifted up, as in the case of the Himalayas, or it must be sent back into the Earth. When crust from one plate slides under the crust of another, it is called subduction, and the area around the subduction is called a subduction zone.
In Iceland’s National Park of Thingvellir one can visit the rift valley that is part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
What is the North Magnetic Pole?
The North Magnetic Pole is where compass needles around the world point. Today it is located beyond Canada’s Northwest Territories near 85.9 degrees north, 147 degrees west (latitude and longitude), about 900 miles (1,450 km) away from absolute North Pole. Since it moves continuously at about 34 miles per hour (55 km per hour), global research scientists are constantly trying to determine the current location of the pole. In order to determine true north, look at a recent topographic map for your local area. It should note the “magnetic declination,” which means the degrees east or west that you’ll need to rotate your compass to determine which way is actually north.
Who had the first idea that there was a magnetic North Pole?
As early as the year 1600, English physician and naturalist William Gilbert was the first person to define the North Magnetic Pole as the point on the Earth where the Earth’s magnetic fields point vertically downward. It was not until 1831 that James Clark Ross found this point. Another famous explorer, Roald Amundsen, found the North Magnetic Pole in 1903, but in a different location. In a third major exploration in 1947, Paul Serson and Jack Clark found the pole on Prince of Wales Island.
What are continents?
Continents are the six or seven large landmasses on the planet. If you count seven continents, these include Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, North America, and South America. Some geographers refer to six continents by combining Europe and Asia as Eurasia, due to the fact that it is one large tectonic plate and landmass. So whether you count Europe and Asia as one continent or two (divided at the Ural Mountains in western Russia) is up to the individual. Australia is the only continent that is its own country.
Why is the number of continents controversial?
We find that there is controversy about how many continents there truly are because of how experts classify and define the word “continent.” It is generally accepted that a continent is a very large, continuous, and discrete landmass, likely separated by water. By using this definition, places like Greenland should be classified as a continent (since, like Australia, it is a landmass surrounded by water), but it is not. North and South America are typically classified as two continents, even though they are joined. Often, experts classify Europe and Asia as two continents, even though they are joined together, with no water between them. Depending on where you live on this planet, you may conclude that there are 6 or 7 continents. In most of the English- and Chinese-speaking world, there are seven continents (Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Australia, and Antarctica), while in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Japan, experts there consider Europe and Asia as one continent called Eurasia. And, in other parts of the world, experts consider North and South America as one landmass. So according to these two latter views of geography, we only have 6 continents, and not seven.
The crust of our planet is a network of several tectonic (or lithospheric) plates, ranging from just a few hundred miles across to thousands of miles, such as the Pacific and Antarctic plates.
What is the largest continent?
If you were to combine the two landmasses of Europe and Asia into one, the largest continent is Eurasia at 21,100,000 square miles (54,649,000 square km). But even if you consider Europe and Asia to be two separate continents, Asia is still the largest, at 17,300,000 square miles (44,807,000 square km).
What is a subcontinent?
A subcontinent is a landmass that has its own continental shelf and its own continental plate. Currently, India and its neighbors form the only subcontinent, but in millions of years, Eastern Africa will break off from Africa and become its own subcontinent.
What was Pangea?
About 250 million years ago, during what is called the Paleozoic Period, all of the land on Earth was lumped together into one large continent known as Pangea. Faults and rifts broke the landmasses apart and pushed them away from each other. The continents slowly moved across the Earth to their present positions, and they continue to move today. The Indian subcontinent (composed of India and its neighbors) continues to push into Asia and create the Himalayas. German scientist Alfred Wegener, who described his theory on continental drift, coined the term “Pangea” in 1912. More than ten years later, the word “Pangea” made its way into English scientific literature in 1926.
A rough drawing illustrating how continental drift caused the continents of Africa and South America to drift apart over millions of years.
Where was Pangea located?
It was located near present-day Antarctica and has slowly drifted and split to form the continents as we know them today. The continents and their tectonic plates continue to move and will one day be in a much different arrangement than they are today.
How are mountains formed?
The process of orogeny, or mountain building, is related to continental drift. When two tectonic plates collide, they often form mountains. This is because the Earth’s crust shortens and thickens, and the thicker crust gradually rises. Layers of rock far beneath the new mountain are superheated and become lighter, causing the rocks
