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301
Af
ric
a
o uthica
S er
Am
Figure 31.1. The close fit of South America and Africa, matched at the edges of their continental shelves.
major rivers empty into the sea and deposit their sedi-
ment. Because such sediment would have been deposit-
ed during relatively recent times, the “overlaps” would
not have existed before the continents separated. In
Pennsylvanian
addition, it is not unlikely that some deformation would Time
have occurred at, or subsequent to, rifting apart of these
huge landmasses.
South America and Africa are not the only conti-
nents that fit together remarkably well at their shelf
boundaries. As later figures will show, India,
Antarctica, and Australia join them in the south with
North America and Eurasia to the north to form a mas-
sive supercontinent. Wegener named this large land- Tertiary
mass Pangaea, a word derived from Greek and mean- Time
ing “all earth.” Figure 31.2 shows Pangaea as he envi-
sioned it. The ensuing seven decades have produced
remarkably few major changes.
Continental Structure
302
Shields
Structural trends
Figure 31.3. Structural features of South America and Africa, with the two continents arranged so that the continental
shelves match best.
the other, despite the fact that the continents were (b)
arranged using the continental shelves, with no regard (a) (d)
for the locations of shields.
The curved lines adjacent to the shields represent
structural trends. These are the directions of major
geologic structures such as zones of deformed rocks and
fold mountain belts, and they appear to be continuous
across the continental boundaries, as if they had once
been connected. Not only that, but the ages of the rocks
also match, as do localities of economic mineral
resources such as tin, iron, and diamond deposits.
We have used South America and Africa to demon- (c)
strate geologic continuity across continental boundaries
because we began with them in discussing the fit of the
continental shelves. Had we chosen to examine other
continental boundaries, the results would have been
similar. For example, the Appalachian Mountains of
eastern North America continue across the British Isles
and into the Fennoscandian Peninsula when the North
Atlantic Ocean is “closed” to bring North America,
Greenland, and Europe together.
Could the continuity of structural trends, as well as
the fit of the continental shelves, all be coincidence? Figure 31.4. Fossil leaves from plants that constitute
the Glossopteris flora. Glossopteris itself is on the left
Paleontological Evidence and was about 20 centimeters long.
303
called the Glossopteris flora. A “flora,” in biological
terms, consists of the plants of a particular area, envi-
ronment, or time period; so these are fossil plants that
are typically found in association with one another, and
the genus Glossopteris is the characteristic fossil for
which the flora is named (Fig. 31.4). During Wegener’s Europe
lifetime this flora was known from rocks of the Permian Greenland
Period in South America, Africa, India, Australia, and
Madagascar; it has since been found in Antarctica and
the Falkland Islands, again in Permian rocks. It is diffi-
cult to imagine how the seeds of these plants could have
been spread across thousands of kilometers of open
ocean, so Wegener reasoned that the oceans must not
have separated these southern landmasses during the
Permian Period.
Fossils of animals, too, are common to at least
some of the southern landmasses. During the Permian
Period there existed a small freshwater reptile called
Mesosaurus whose fossils are found in similar rocks in
South Africa and in Brazil. A bit later, during the early
Africa
Triassic Period, a medium-sized reptile called North America
Lystrosaurus left its remains in what are now Brazil,
South Africa, India, Antarctica, and China. (Just how
eastern Asia may have fit into Pangaea is still inade-
quately understood.) Neither of these animals were
capable of traversing large bodies of water, yet their fos-
sils are now separated by oceans.
South America
Paleontological evidence from North America and
Eurasia is less spectacular than that from the southern Figure 31.5. During the Cambrian and Ordovician
continents, but it is there nonetheless. Consider, for Periods, trilobites on different sides of the heavy line
example, the small, bottom-dwelling marine animals looked quite different, as shown. During the Silurian
known as trilobites (Fig. 31.5). During the early and Devonian Periods, they gradually became identical.
Paleozoic Era, the trilobites on the North American side Note that the line separating the early trilobites wanders
of the heavy line were quite different from those on the back and forth across the boundaries of what are now
European side, as judged from the fossils found in rocks widely separated continents. Could it be that these ani-
of that age. Note, however, that the line doesn’t quite mals interbred as the Atlantic Ocean closed to form
divide North America from Europe. There are places Pangaea, and that the later separation produced slightly
where “North American” trilobites are found in early different boundaries than the continents previously had?
Paleozoic rocks of what is now Europe and other places
where “European” trilobites are found on the edge of
present-day North America. As we look at trilobites of
more and more recent rocks, however, we find that the
Paleoclimatic Evidence
differences in the two populations decrease and largely
disappear by the middle of the Paleozoic Era. In
Rocks contain clues about the climatic or environ-
Wegenerian terms, it appears that the closing of the
mental conditions under which they formed, or to which
ancient Atlantic Ocean to form Pangaea resulted in the
they have been subjected over the eons of geologic
interbreeding of trilobites previously separated by the
time. For example, fossil plants in sedimentary rocks
sea and that the reopening of the Atlantic when the
can often be identified as typical of tropical, subtropi-
supercontinent fragmented did not take place exactly
cal, or temperate climates; coal beds are the remains of
along the pre-Pangaean boundaries; some of what used
plants that flourished in warm, swampy, coastal envi-
to be one continent ended up with the other.
ronments; some rocks consist of chemical precipitates
Examples like these show clearly why Wegener
(such as rock salt), suggesting the evaporation of poor-
was so impressed with the paleontological evidence for
ly circulating bodies of water such as lakes or land-
continental drift.
locked seas; current ripple marks left in sediment can
later reveal not only the environment of deposition but
304
Figure 31.6. The present distribution of rocks glaciated by the Permian ice age. Arrows show the directions of ice
movement.
305
ec limate
i d lo w-latitud
Ar
s
Tropic
te
cl ima
it ude
w -lat
Ar id lo
Glaciers
Figure 31.8. Late Paleozoic climates of the world, as determined from the geologic evidence found in rocks of that age.
As with several previous figures, the continents have been arranged to match the edges of the continental shelves.
Paleomagnetic Evidence be used to detect the direction of this field in the rock,
and if that direction does not coincide with the present
When volcanoes erupt basaltic lava (that is, lava magnetic field of the earth, then the rock has either been
that will crystallize to form the black volcanic rock, moved or the earth’s field has changed directions.
basalt), there are generally some crystals already in it Figure 31.9 depicts, in a schematic way, what is
that have formed below the surface, but most of it is liq- found when the magnetic fields of late Paleozoic lava
uid and only becomes crystalline as heat is lost to the flows are measured in South America, Africa, and India.
surroundings. Eventually (hours to months, depending The directions toward late Paleozoic north are inconsis-
on the thickness of the lava), all of the liquid crystallizes tent—the arrows do not point to the same places on the
to form minerals. One of the minerals present is called earth. The nature of the earth’s field, originating as it
magnetite, an iron oxide that is magnetic enough to does in the core, requires that there be only one north
respond strongly to a magnetic field. There is never a pole at a time, so these results do not make sense. But
large amount of it in basalt, but what there is provides look what happens if these landmasses are placed
us with a way of detecting the orientation of the earth’s together in our standard Pangaean orientation. The
magnetic field during the time the lava was erupted. north arrows now all point to a single location. Again,
The magnetism of magnetite originates in the spins the strong indication is that the continents were once
of the electrons in orbitals surrounding the iron nuclei, located in different relative positions on the earth than
and above its Curie temperature magnetite is not mag- they are in now.
netic. (Recall that we have encountered the Curie tem-
perature before, in Chapter 30.) The temperature of lava Wegener’s Hypothesis: Mechanism, Test, and
erupted from a volcano is very high, but as the solidified Rejection
lava cools it passes through the Curie temperature and
the magnetite becomes magnetic. In doing so, its elec- Continental fits, structural continuities, paleontol-
trons arrange themselves so that their spin axes line up ogy, paleoclimatology, and paleomagnetism all point
with the direction of the earth’s magnetic field at the toward a single answer. With his evidence in place and
time, creating a permanent magnetic field in the rock. absolutely convinced that the continents did drift about,
Once the rock cools through the Curie temperature, the Wegener had only one important conceptual problem
magnetic field is “frozen” in, and it does not change with left to solve: There needed to be some mechanism for
respect to the rock itself, even if the rock is moved or the moving them. He knew that the continents consist of
earth’s field shifts. A device called a magnetometer can rock that is less dense than that of the ocean basins, so he
306
came forth early in the debate was found in the southern
(a) hemisphere, and some South African geologists
(notably Alexander Du Toit, 1878-1948) did much to
foster Wegener’s ideas there. For a time, the theory was
considered acceptable south of the equator but heresy
north of it; however, the great majority of geologists
were European and North American, so continental drift
fell into disfavor with the bulk of the scientific commu-
nity. Despite its general rejection, the theory was far
from forgotten, and heated debates about the evidence
went on for decades. At an auspicious meeting of 14
eminent geologists in 1928, five supported the theory
outright, two supported it with reservations, and seven
were unalterably opposed to it. It was not, to say the
least, greeted unanimously as the solution to the grand
(b) mysteries of geology!
Seafloor Spreading
307
it was quite different in composition from the continents, have taken place irregularly but on an average of every
it was largely ignored on both sides of the debate. half-million years.
During the 1950s and 1960s, however, it became tech- Independently of all of this work by continental
nologically possible to map the ocean floor in great geologists, the seafloor geologists were mapping the
detail, and so the oceanographers set about the task. magnetism in the rocks at the bottom of the ocean by
Among the features they found was a great sinuous ridge towing magnetometers across the North Atlantic Ocean.
that girdled the globe, poking above sea level only at What they were measuring was not just the earth’s main
places like Iceland and a few other islands. The ridge magnetic field, but that field plus the magnetic fields of
runs down the center of the Atlantic Ocean, having a the basalts on the floor of the sea. What they found
shape remarkably similar to the boundaries of the conti- were stripes—long, narrow bands running parallel to
nents on either side, and from there proceeds between the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that alternated symmetrically on
the landmasses that were supposed to have formed either side of the ridge as bands of high and low total
Pangaea. Detailed investigation revealed that the ridge magnetism. Not only was this result completely unex-
has a central rift valley that runs along its length. pected, but it seemed inexplicable as well. Not until
Looking elsewhere in the ocean basins, geochronolo- 1963 did the explanation emerge, when F. J. Vine and D.
gists found that none of the basalts dredged from the H. Matthews, a graduate student and his supervisor at
ocean floor are older than Mesozoic, and geophysicists Cambridge University, put Hess’s ideas together with
found large concentrations of deep earthquakes associat- the magnetic reversals discovered on land and the mag-
ed with the deep ocean trenches that adjoin the island netic stripes of the seafloor.
arcs.
Enter Harry Hess of Princeton University. He rea-
soned that the central rift of the ocean ridge had to be a
tensional feature (see Fig. 31.10), indicating that the
seafloor was being pulled apart there—according to his
scenario, by convection currents in the asthenosphere
below. As rifting proceeded, magma from the asthenos-
phere would ascend to fill in the fissures, thus creating
new oceanic crust. The oceanic lithosphere thus creat-
ed would slowly move away from the oceanic ridge
toward the deep ocean trenches, where it would descend
into the asthenosphere to be melted and recycled.
Because the seafloor was created at the ridge and
destroyed at the trenches, it was perpetually young.
In 1960 when he presented it, the evidence for all
of this was still so tenuous that Hess called it “geopoet-
Time
ry”. The confirmation came when the data from conti-
nental and seafloor geology were finally merged.
308
Vine and Matthews proposed that the bands of occur where plates meet and bump against one another.
strong magnetism are those for which the earth’s main (We shall get into the mechanics of such interactions in
field and that of the seafloor rocks add together (that is, the next chapter.) The worldwide distribution of earth-
the rocks show normal polarity) and that the others, in quakes over a six-year period and the outlines of the
which the magnetism is weaker, are those in which the lithospheric plates implied by it are shown in Figure
magnetic field of the basalts subtracts from the earth’s 31.12.
field (the rocks show reverse polarity). What had real- The theory we have just explained is called the
ly been revealed by the magnetometer surveys were Theory of Plate Tectonics, and nearly all geologists
bands of normal polarity and reverse polarity in the now accept it as a viable model for how the earth works.
seafloor basalts. As the basalt lavas were extruded at (“Tectonics” is a word that suggests the broad structur-
the oceanic ridge, according to Hess’s proposal, they al aspects of the earth.) Many observations that used to
would become magnetized by the magnetic field of the be geologic mysteries are now nicely explained by the
earth at the time and then would migrate away from the theory. Interestingly, one of the verifications of plate
ridge, allowing newer rock to form. At some time the motion comes from observations of objects literally bil-
polarity of the earth would change, and then the subse- lions of light-years away—quasars (see Chapter 27).
quent lavas would result in rocks of the opposite polar- By observing the light of these strange objects from dif-
ity. The process is diagramed in Figure 31.11. ferent points on the earth and combining the observa-
Two Canadian scientists, L. Morley and A. tions using a technique called interferometry, the
Larochelle, must be credited with explaining the mag- motion of the plates can, in principle, be detected. Such
netic stripes simultaneously with, but independently of, experimental measurements are still in their early
Vine and Matthews. Their paper was actually submit- stages, but so far they confirm quite well the directions
ted a little before that of Vine and Matthews, but the edi- and speeds of plate motions as determined from earth-
tor of the journal to which they submitted it considered bound evidence.
the concept too speculative and refused publication.
Sometimes, in drawing its intellectual gun, science The Breakup of Pangaea
shoots itself in the foot! The wound is never fatal, but
it can be very painful. We return now to Wegener’s Pangaea—not “the
beginning” of the earth nor even the “original” conti-
Further Tests and Triumph nent, but a landmass that came together by the random
motions of plate tectonics as a discrete event in the long
If the hypothesis of Vine and Matthews is correct, history of the earth. The same forces that brought
then it should lead to some predictable results that can Pangaea together during the late Paleozoic Era shifted
be tested, and this is the case. Consider, for instance, directions and ripped it apart during the Mesozoic.
where the youngest and oldest ocean floor should be. Figure 31.13 shows a modern version of Figure 31.2.
The youngest should occur at the ocean ridges, and the Like nearly all things scientific, the final chapter on
seafloor should get progressively older away from the reconstruction of ancient plate motions has not yet
them. Our ability to dredge basalts from the seafloor been written. Much work is still being done on pre-
and determine their radiometric ages should facilitate Pangaea plate motions, and even the timing of the
the necessary test. In addition, the thickness of marine breakup of the supercontinent is not entirely sure.
sediments deposited on the seafloor should increase There are unanswered questions that do not invalidate
away from the ridges, because older seafloor has had the broad aspects of the theory but which may require
more time to accumulate it. Finally, the oldest marine serious reconsideration of the absolute dates of some
fossils in the present oceans should be found in the bot- events. For example, the fossil remains of a dinosaur
tom-most layers of sediment away from the ridges. The called Titanosaurus are found in South America, Africa,
data have been examined, and seafloor spreading has and India. No problem, right? Wrong. The age of the
passed all of these tests. Had it failed any one of them, rocks in which the fossils are found is late Cretaceous,
seafloor spreading could not have been accepted as real- and by that time the conventional scenario has these
ity. Because it passed all of them, it is virtually incon- landmasses too far apart to allow migration. Could the
ceivable that it is not reality. fossils be very similar but not actually identical?
In its broad outlines, Wegener’s continental drift Possibly. Or perhaps there is another answer that will
was vindicated. The continents do move about the sur- bring more surprises when we discover it.
face of the earth, but they do not plow through the crust
of the ocean. Rather, they ride as passive passengers on Postscript: A Comment on the Way Science Works
great plates of lithosphere that originate at ocean ridges
and are destroyed at the deep ocean trenches. These You will probably agree that all of the evidence that
lithospheric plates are outlined by the earthquakes that eventually accumulated in favor of continental drift dur-
309
(a)
(b)
Eurasian plate
North American
plate
Ar
a
pl bia
te e
at n
pla ppin
Caribbean e
ili
Cocos
plate
African
plate
Nazca South American
Australian plate plate
plate
Antarctic plate
Figure 31.12. (a) The distribution of earthquakes for a period of six years. The narrow lines of seismic activity delin-
eate the boundaries of the lithospheric plates. (b) The outlines and names of the lithospheric plates.
310
Figure 31.13. A currently accepted arrangement of the present continents in the supercontinent, Pangaea.
ing the first half of the 20th century (much of which was not only reasonable but also required.
Wegener, himself, had) is pretty impressive. Any indi- Despite occasional statements to the contrary by sci-
vidual observation might be accepted as merely coinci- entists who wish to appear completely objective, science
dence, but considered as a body it is indeed imposing. is an intensely personal endeavor to those engaged in it.
Yet for half a century after Wegener proposed Pangaea Each scientific issue of any consequence is represented by
and its breakup, the theory met with open opposition a number of differing viewpoints, each with its own group
from most scientists. Because of the hindsight that is of proponents. New developments or proposals put forth
always available to those of a later generation, it is easy by one group are scrutinized and tested by the other
for us to be critical of the scientists who rejected conti- groups, and weaknesses are exposed while strengths are
nental drift; but that judgment may overlook some of the admitted. Instead of tearing science down, this process
important strengths inherent in the methods of science. builds it by preserving only the theories and ideas most
Wegener’s treatment at the hands of the scientific consistent with observation, and eventually those theories
establishment is reminiscent of Galileo’s treatment at the that can withstand the most rigorous testing come to be
hands of the religious establishment. It is clear that some accepted even by those who initially disagreed.
of the opposition was not to Wegener’s theory per se but Even then, it is recognized that good theories are no
to a scientist who had wandered outside the limits of his more than close approximations to the truth and can be
own field and proposed radical ideas in a discipline for refined. (Consider, for example, that Newtonian
which his formal educational credentials did not qualify mechanics and gravitation were considered accurate
him. On the other hand, Jeffreys was, in fact, absolute- descriptions of nature for nearly three centuries until
ly correct when he announced that continental move- quantum mechanics and relativity revealed them to be
ment through the oceanic rocks could not possibly have only very good approximations.) Thus, if the methods
occurred. Had he or someone else not challenged at of science are often painstakingly slow, they are at least
least this proposed mechanism and it had been widely self-correcting, and serious errors are eliminated as long
accepted, it would still have been incorrect; truth is, after as old ideas are honestly questioned and those found
all, not determined by majority vote. Thus, sending the lacking are replaced by better ones.
proponents of continental drift “back to the drawing
board” to come up with a more convincing mechanism
311
Summary square kilometers of land surface and flow outward
from the center of the glacier due to the extreme
The synthesis of evidence from continental and weight of the ice at the center. The positions and
seafloor geology have revealed that the lithosphere of apparent motions of Paleozoic continental glaciers
the earth is fragmented into several large plates that jos- are taken as evidence for continental drift. This is
tle against one another and move about the surface of a type of paleoclimatic evidence.
the planet, essentially floating on the partially molten 4. Continental Shelf: See Chapter 28.
asthenosphere below. The theory that deals with this 5. Continental Structure Evidence: The locations
phenomenon is known as plate tectonics. Over the span of major structural features of the continents, i.e.,
of geologic time, movement of continental masses shield, stable platforms, and fold mountain belts,
across thousands of kilometers has formed superconti- suggest that the continents were once part of a
nents that have subsequently been broken apart. One supercontinent.
result is that the oceanic crust has been continually 6. Curie Temperature: See Chapter 30.
renewed and has remained geologically young. In the 7. Glossopteris Flora: A collection of species of
next chapter, we shall examine the details of plate tec- plants (flora) of the Permian Period of the
tonic theory. Paleozoic Era that is common to South America,
Africa, India, Madagascar, Antarctica, and the
STUDY GUIDE Falkland Islands. The existence of this particular
Chapter 31: From Continental Drift to Plate flora on widely separated continents is taken as evi-
Tectonics: The Evidence dence for continental drift.
8. Interferometry: A method used to measure the
A. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES: No new funda- movement of the continents. Very distant astro-
mental principles. nomical objects (quasars) are observed from posi-
tions on two different continents and the light sig-
B. MODELS, IDEAS, QUESTIONS, OR APPLICA- nals are artificially combined into an interference
TIONS pattern as if the two observation sites represented
1. The Theory (Model) of Plate Tectonics: The two slits through which the light passed to form an
model of the earth in which the rigid outer layer of interference pattern. As the continents move, the
the earth (lithosphere) is fractured into separate pattern changes in a way that allows the measure-
pieces (plates) that move relative to one another ment of the relative motion of two continents.
carried by convection currents originating in the 9. Lystrosaurus: A medium-sized, early Mesozoic
mantle and driven by heat released by radioactivi- reptile whose fossil remains are found in Brazil,
ty. The plates move on a partially molten layer South Africa, India, Antarctica, and China. The
(asthenosphere) underneath the plates and may presence of the fossils on the widely separated con-
push against one another (convergent boundary), tinents is taken as evidence of continental drift after
move away from one another (divergent boundary), the beginning of the Mesozoic.
or slide past one another (transform boundary). 10. Magnetic Reversal: The magnetic field of the
The model unifies the ideas of continental drift and earth sometimes reverses so that its direction is
seafloor spreading. opposite to that of an earlier time. The magnetic
2. What is meant by “continental drift”? field may either exhibit normal polarity (the pre-
3. What is the evidence for continental drift and what sent orientation) or reversed polarity (in which the
problem was unresolved by the continental drift present south pole becomes magnetic north).
model? 11. Magnetite: An iron oxide mineral found in basalt.
4. What is mean by “seafloor spreading”? The magnetic field of the magnetite aligns with the
5. What is the evidence for seafloor spreading? earth’s magnetic field as molten basalt cools to
solid form and makes a permanent record of the
C. GLOSSARY direction of the earth’s magnetic field when the
1. Continental Drift: The idea that the continents are rock formed.
mobile blocks of crust capable of moving thou- 12. Mesosaur: A small, freshwater reptile whose fos-
sands of kilometers around the globe. sils are found in similar rocks in South Africa and
2. Continental Fit: The edges of continents can be Brazil. These fossils on the widely separated con-
placed together in a manner similar to a jigsaw puz- tinents is taken as evidence for continental drift.
zle to form a massive supercontinent called 13. Paleoclimatic Evidence: Evidence from the
Pangaea. ancient climates, as determined by rocks and fos-
3. Continental Glacier Evidence: Continental glac- sils, that the continents were joined together mil-
iers are great sheets of ice that cover thousands of lions of years ago and were in different positions
312
than at present. climates.
14. Paleomagnetic Evidence: Evidence obtained from (c) the southern landmasses have separated since
the ancient record of the earth’s magnetic field the Permian Period.
direction obtained from lavas erupted on the sur- (d) the southern landmasses have become closer
face of the earth. This evidence suggests that the since the Permian Period.
continents’ past positions differ from their present
positions. 31.3. Which of the following is not evidence for
15. Paleontological Evidence: Fossils of plants such continental drift?
as those from the Glossopteris flora and of animals (a) Changes in Paleozoic trilobites in North
such as Mesosaurus, Lystrosaurus, and trilobites America and Europe.
suggest that the continents were joined together (b) The presence of Glossopteris on several conti-
millions of years ago. nents.
16. Pangaea: The large landmass (supercontinent) (c) Glaciated Permian rocks on several continents.
reconstructed by joining all of the continent togeth- (d) The geometrical fit of North America and
er using their continental shelves as boundaries. It Australia.
is believed to have formed during the Paleozoic Era
over 200 million years ago. 31.4. How does paleomagnetism support the theo-
17. Seafloor Spreading: The idea that the seafloor is ry of continental drift?
being pulled apart at oceanic ridges by convection
currents in the upper mantle and asthenosphere 31.5. The alternating stripes of strong and weak
causing the ocean floor to slowly move away from magnetism found in rocks of the seafloor are
the oceanic ridge. New ocean floor is created as (a) parallel to the oceanic ridges.
magma from the asthenosphere fills the fissure (b) perpendicular to the oceanic ridges.
caused by spreading, and old ocean floor is (c) oblique to the oceanic ridges.
destroyed at deep ocean trenches. (d) too far from the oceanic ridges to judge their
18. Trilobites: Small, bottom-dwelling marine ani- relative orientations.
mals which lived during the Paleozoic era and pro-
vide evidence for continental drift. 31.6. What testable predictions arise from the
hypothesis that the seafloor is spreading at the oceanic
D. FOCUS QUESTIONS ridges?
1. Consider the idea of continental drift:
a. What is meant by continental drift?
b. Describe evidence from five different kinds of
observations that is consistent with the idea of con-
tinental drift.
c. Describe the major problem unexplained by the
idea of continental drift.
2. Consider the idea of seafloor spreading:
a. What is meant by seafloor spreading?
b. Describe evidence from two different observa-
tions that is consistent with the idea of seafloor
spreading.
c. Explain how it is possible for the seafloor to
spread (expand) on an earth of constant size.
E. EXERCISES
31.1. When attempting to fit continents together
geometrically, we use the edges of their continental
shelves rather than the coastlines. Why?
313
314