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Plate Tectonics and Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2017

David Jablonski
David Jablonski*
Affiliation:
Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, 5734 South Ellis Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60637
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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 shows the diverse evolutionary effects that the dynamics of the Earth's crust have had on the passengers inhabiting those mobile continents.

Type
Mechanisms of Evolution
Information
The Paleontological Society Special Publications , Volume 9: Evolution: Investigating the Evidence , 1999 , pp. 283 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by The Paleontological Society 

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References

References Cited

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