Earth Sciences 1023A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Seafloor Spreading, Bathymetry, Continental Crust
Document Summary
~85% of mantle heat is lost by convection. created and lost from the interior of the earth. Three mechanisms for the transfer of heat: - conduction, convection, and radiation. Heat transfer: earth"s temperature today is a balance between how fast heats is. Convection heat flow in the mantle: convection is the primary means to remove. Alfred wegener: father of continental drift theory 1915. Temperature distribution in continental crust and lithosphere is governed mainly by conductive heat loss to the surface. Convection plays the dominant role in the transport of heat from the mantle. His proof included: coastline fit, fossil record, similarity of rock assemblages on different continents. Wegener could not suggest a viable mechanism to move plates. But, by 1950s it enjoyed a revival, as a result of the collection of new data sets with unexpected features.