Why are large landmasses moving. What’s moving them and what’s the end goal.
In: Earth Science
Radioactive decay in the centre of the earth is producing heat. This creates convection currents in the molten rock below the crust. It is the friction between the molten rock and the crust which drags the continents around.
They don’t all move at the same speed, but a typical rate would be 2 to 3 cm per year. So over a century, Europe and the USA would move apart by 2 or 3 m. Looking at a map, you would not notice it.
Here’s an [interactive globe](https://dinosaurpictures.org/ancient-earth#120) showing how the plates move.
1. Choose how far in the past
2. Choose a modern day city
3. Marvel at fragility of puny existence.
Tectonic plates. Imagine you have multiple Rafts on water. They move because of tides and waves. Now replace Rafts with giant plates out of Rocks and other stuff and replace the water with magma. What do you get? Slow moving Plates. Also the earth would pretty much look the same in the next 100 years.
So there are these plates that under the crust of the earth, and ever so slowly they will move over or under one another. When they do you will get earthquakes. As for how much the continents will move in a century maybe 2 to 3 inches. it is very slow
a ) The world’s crust is split up in to tectonic plates: Massive sheets of crust floating on the semi-molten mantle moving under, above, and along each other. They’re moved by the currents of the mantle, fueled by the heat produced in the core of the earth.
b ) These plates move *painfully* slowly. In 100 years most plates will only have moved a few meters, about two humans laid end to end. There is next to no way you’d notice any sort of meaningful difference on any map.
c ) There is no end goal, any more than a leaf floating on top of a pool has any end goal. Tectonic plates aren’t sentient, they just happen to be floating on the mantle which pushes them to and fro.
in 100 years? Few centimeters here and there. In 100 million years, or a billion years? Now we are talking really visible changes. Continental drift is SLOW.
The earth is mostly composed of a mixture of very thick liquid rock and metal. A very thin solid rock crust floats on top of this liquid. Because the crust is thin, it tends to break into individual chunks called tectonic plates. These chunks can drift apart from each other, creating rifts, or collide with each other. Because the liquid core of the earth is very thick and gloopy, the tectonic plates move very slowly.
Even the fastest moving tectonic plates are only moving an inch or two per year. Major events like earthquakes can cause relative rapid shifts of a few inches or even a few feet. Given this speed, there really won’t be any noticeable different in 100 years. If North American were 5 feet further from Europe, would you really be able to notice?
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