~GREAT GLOBAL RIFT~ Oceans of World hold key

Rev. 16 Earthquake, ~GREAT GLOBAL RIFT~ Oceans of World hold key


Great Global Rift is discovered
1953


http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/images/d356ridg02.jpeg


excerpt
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/do53ri.html

This expedition was the first use of closely spaced echo sounders to map deep sea topography and the first to reveal the extent of the sea floor's rugged terrain. The expedition also found that a continuous mountain-like ridge runs through the Atlantic to the southwest of Africa. Unfortunately it was not realized at the time that this finding supported Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift.



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Alfred Wegener
1880 - 1930
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bowege.html
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That ridge, it was later discovered, extended through the major oceans of the world. It is now called the Mid-Ocean Ridge. In 1953, American physicists Maurice Ewing (1906-1974) and Bruce Heezen (1924-1977) discovered that through this underwater mountain range ran a deep canyon. In some places the canyon, called the Great Global Rift, came very close to land. The rift appeared to be breaks in the earth's crust, but perfectly fitted breaks, like joints made by a carpenter. The rift outlined chunks of the earth's crust, which were named tectonic (from a Greek word for "carpenter") plates. Six large and several smaller plates make up the surface of the globe. Most of the world's earthquakes and volcanoes occur at the plates' edges. The large plate containing most of the Pacific Rim accounts for 80 percent of the earthquake energy of the planet.