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05.07.2020 13:02 •  Английский язык

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THE EARTH AND ITS STRUCTURE
The features of the earth’s surface range from vast plains to towering mountain peaks, from tablelike plateaus to deep ocean floors. For centuries scientists have devised theories to help explain the diversity of the earth’s surface features and the forces that change those features.
The Earth’s origin. Scientists have only theories, or scientific guesses, about how the earth appeared. According to one theory, a hot, spinning cloud of dust and gas formed in space. Parts of this dust and gas cloud separated, forming the sun, the earth, and other planets. The part of the dust and gas cloud that became the earth slowly cooled. As it cooled, it gradually became a solid mass. There are scientists who believe the earth became a solid mass about 5.5 billion years ago.
The Earth’s interior. Scientists have studied the surface of the earth for centuries. Yet each year brings new information about the earth’s surface that is added to the data already known. Direct observation of the earth’s deep interior, however, remains impossible. Currently scientists can gather information about the center of the earth only through indirect evidence.
Vibrations of the earth caused by earthquakes, or seismic waves, tell what the earth’s inner structure is like. These waves change speeds as they move through different kinds of rocks: faster through solid material, slower through molten material. By studying the wave patterns, scientists can learn a great deal about the earth’s interior. From such studies they have concluded that the three major layers of the earth’s interior are the core, the mantle, and the crust.
Drifting continents. The earth today is very different from the earth of millions of years ago. The texture of the land, the locations of the landmasses, and the climate have undergone tremendous changes – changes that scientists even now can only begin to understand.
Most scientists are convinced that the earth’s continents are slowly moving, or drifting. One of the first proponents of this idea was Francis Bacon, a seventeenth century British scientist. After studying the latest maps of the earth and trying to piece together the shapes of the continents, Bacon concluded that the continents once were joined, forming one huge landmass.
In 1912 a German geographer named Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift. Wegener believed that there was once a single supercontinent that he called Pangaea, from the Greek words pan, meaning “all”, and ge, meaning “the earth”. According to Wegener, Pangaea split apart millions of years ago to form two huge continents – Laurasia in the Northern Hemisphere and Gondwanaland in the Southern Hemisphere which later broke up to form continents. Wegener believed that the landmasses drifted for millions of years to their present locations. He also claimed that the continents are still drifting.
Wegener’s theory caused a storm of controversy. Despite fossil and geological evidence, most scientists could not accept the idea. They argued that it was scientifically impossible for the continents to move across the solid seafloor. At the time Wegener and his supporters could not conclusively prove their arguments. New studies of the seafloor, however, have given more scientific evidence to support the theory of continental drift.