How did the continents get to where they are today?

Answer 1

The Earth is made up of Tectonic Plates, these are large sections of land (Continental Plates) or ocean (Oceanic Plates). The Mantle (magma beneath the Earth's crust) is heated from the core of the Earth, where it is hottest, causing a convection current, this is when a fluid (magma in this case) is heated unevenly and the hot fluid rises, causing the cooler fluid to sink in its place (forming a circular current of heating, rising, cooling and sinking.)

This current effectively drags the Tectonic Plates along in differenbt directions to each other, causing them to move apart or together, sometimes even alongside each other.

Answer 2

A map of the world from 225x106 years ago would look a whole lot different than the familiar arrangement of continents today. The plates of the earth's crust "float" on the less solid material of the mantle underneath it. Fluctuations in the temperature of the mantle cause convection currents to very slowly move the continents and ocean floors around. Sometimes, one plate will move under another; sometimes they separate away from each other; sometimes they grind past each other. They only move an average of a few centimeters per year, but over hundreds of millions of years, the change is profound. This slow process is responsible for earthquakes, as well as changes in climate, ocean currents, and volcanic activity. With computers, we are able to "back up" these movements to determine what land masses were where millions of years ago, and, in fact, it explains why marine fossils can be found way up on mountains, and why fossils from similar time periods can be found in parts of the world that used to "connect," like western Africa and eastern South America.

Answer 3

The movement of continents is caused by plate tectonics. In plate tectonics, Earth's continents are moved along or float on a plastic-like layer of the Earth known as the asthenosphere. For more information, click on the link below.

Answer 4

The pangaea. The hypothetical landmass that existed when all the continents were joined from about 300 to 200 million years ago. What happened is underneath the earths crust is molten rock. The continents are basically floating on top of the rock and therefore move and shift. Pangaea was broken up because the tectonic plates are continually moving.

Answer 5

Continents move due to tectonic plates in the upper mantle. Scientists believe that continents move 2 to 6 inches every year.

Answer 6

The continents have shifted by the movement of the plates over time.

Answer 7

The continents moved apart due to continental drift. This is caused by the movement of the earth's plates.

Answer 8

It's caused by continental drift, which is the plates of the Earth's crust moving.

Answer 9

Because of plate techtonics