Lithosphere Hayato Ishida IB Environmental System SL P.1
Nov 28, 2014
Lithosphere
Hayato IshidaIB Environmental
System SL P.1
Earth cross section 1. Crust2. Mantle3. a- Outer core b- Inner
core
4. Lithosphere5.
Asthenosphere
Inside the Earth
Plate tectonics theory Lithosphere → broken up into tectonic plates.
composed of both continental and oceanic crust.
Describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere ride on the denser asthenosphere.
Eight major and many minor plates
Plate tectonics
•Some plates are a. moving toward each other, b. moving away, c. sliding past each
other.
Theory of continental drift
the movement of the Earth's continents relative to each other.
Influenced disjunct distribution
•evolution•biodiversity
Disjunct distribution
•Madagascar has a highly endemic biota.•Madagascar and India were the first land masses to split from Gondwanaland 160-120 million years ago.•India and Madagascar separated about 88-63 million years ago.•India collides with south Asia about 50 million years ago.•Recent molecular phylogeny supports that dispersal was a major factor in the formation of the Malagasy biota, and not vicariance.
-Sample of Madagascar
Animals in Madagascar
•Lemurs evolved in Madagascar
•Chameleons originated in Madagascar and dispersed to Africa, India and the Indian Ocean islands.