Well, if you’ve ever been in an earthquake, you have felt the continents move! The Earth is divided into several tectonic plates that can be on the continents or in the oceans. At the boundaries of the tectonic plates you can have processes called subduction, where literally one plate is being pulled underneath the other. And at these areas earthquakes are very common, for example, if you’ve ever heard of the “Ring of Fire” in the Pacific.
Aside from experiencing an earthquake, you don’t feel the continents moving because it is EXTREMELY slow. Something on the order of only 50 cm/year the continents are moving.
Plates can move at about 2.5 cm per year, about the speed that your fingernail grows. Apart from the sudden movements that we feel during earthquakes, it is difficult to feel the continents move because we are moving at the same slow velocity as the continents. It is similar to being inside a car moving at 120 km/hr. We don’t feel much of the movement of the car because we are also moving at the same velocity as the car. Now imagine moving inside a car that moves very slow (like plates). If you don’t pay attention you would believe that the car is not moving!
because we are moving with them!in fact, it is for the same reason that we can not feel the Earth rotating everyday either. Besides, as mentioned before, continents moves extremely slow, so we just ignore this fact until an earthquake reminds us they are actually moving around.
We feel continents move if there is an earthquake of a large magnitude. Otherwise, as Anna mentioned, we are basically moving with the continents, hence not feel them move. Picture this, when you are on an aeroplane, you don’t feel it move (because you are moving with it), unless there is a turbulence (which in our case would be an earthquake). Hope this helps! 🙂
As the other geoscientists have mentioned its literally because we are moving with the continents, and this is super slow.
As Anna said, earthquakes remind us that plate movement does happen!
Well, if you’ve ever been in an earthquake, you have felt the continents move! The Earth is divided into several tectonic plates that can be on the continents or in the oceans. At the boundaries of the tectonic plates you can have processes called subduction, where literally one plate is being pulled underneath the other. And at these areas earthquakes are very common, for example, if you’ve ever heard of the “Ring of Fire” in the Pacific.
Aside from experiencing an earthquake, you don’t feel the continents moving because it is EXTREMELY slow. Something on the order of only 50 cm/year the continents are moving.
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Plates can move at about 2.5 cm per year, about the speed that your fingernail grows. Apart from the sudden movements that we feel during earthquakes, it is difficult to feel the continents move because we are moving at the same slow velocity as the continents. It is similar to being inside a car moving at 120 km/hr. We don’t feel much of the movement of the car because we are also moving at the same velocity as the car. Now imagine moving inside a car that moves very slow (like plates). If you don’t pay attention you would believe that the car is not moving!
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because we are moving with them!in fact, it is for the same reason that we can not feel the Earth rotating everyday either. Besides, as mentioned before, continents moves extremely slow, so we just ignore this fact until an earthquake reminds us they are actually moving around.
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We feel continents move if there is an earthquake of a large magnitude. Otherwise, as Anna mentioned, we are basically moving with the continents, hence not feel them move. Picture this, when you are on an aeroplane, you don’t feel it move (because you are moving with it), unless there is a turbulence (which in our case would be an earthquake). Hope this helps! 🙂
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As the other geoscientists have mentioned its literally because we are moving with the continents, and this is super slow.
As Anna said, earthquakes remind us that plate movement does happen!
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