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Plate Tectonics and Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2017

David I. Jablonski
David I. Jablonski*
Affiliation:
Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, 5734 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637 USA
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Extract

The realization that the continents are mobile and not fixed in position, and the discovery of the processes driving that mobility, is one of the great scientific achievements of the 20th Century. From the outset, fossil evidence has been important in reconstructing past continental positions, usually by providing data on ancient similarities and differences that appear at odds with present-day geographies. However, the fossil record does much more than provide evidence on ancient continental positions: it also shows the diverse evolutionary effects that the dynamics of the Earth's crust have had on the passengers inhabiting those mobile continents.

Type
Section 4: Mechanisms of Evolution
Information
The Paleontological Society Special Publications , Volume 11: Evolution: Investigating the Evidence, 2nd ed. , 2002 , pp. 227 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © 1999, 2002 by The Paleontological Society 

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References

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