What developments during world war ii changed the way war was fought on the front lines?

according to hess's theory, when the magma cooled, it would expand and push the tectonic plates apart. it would push the north and south america plates to the west and eurasia and africa ones to the east. the atlantic ocean would get wider but the coastlines of the masses would stay the same.

harry hammond hess was a geologist and a united states navy officer in the second world war. he is considered to be one of the founding fathers of the theory of plate tectonics. he is known for his theories on sea floor spreading, stating that the movement of the continents was the result of see floor spreading. the continents are attached to the plates and do not move separately. the plates themselves shift and change shape, carrying the continents along.

the earth’s crust is broken into separate pieces called tectonic plates (fig. 7.14). recall that the crust is the solid, rocky, outer shell of the planet. it is composed of two distinctly different types of material: the less-dense continental crust and the more-dense oceanic crust. both types of crust rest atop solid, upper mantle material. the upper mantle, in turn, floats on a denser layer of lower mantle that is much like thick molten tar.

each tectonic plate is free-floating and can move independently. earthquakes and volcanoes are the direct result of the movement of tectonic plates at fault lines. the term fault is used to describe the boundary between tectonic plates. most of the earthquakes and volcanoes around the pacific ocean basin—a pattern known as the “ring of fire”—are due to the movement of tectonic plates in this region. other observable results of short-term plate movement include the gradual widening of the great rift lakes in eastern africa and the rising of the himalayan mountain range. the motion of plates can be described in four general patterns:

collision: when two continental plates are shoved together

subduction: when one plate plunges beneath another (fig. 7.15)

spreading: when two plates are pushed apart (fig. 7.15)

transform faulting: when two plates slide past each other (fig. 7.15)