History
The first scientific paper detailing the triple junction concept was published in 1969 by W. Jason Morgan, Dan McKenzie, and Tanya Atwater. The term has traditionally been used for the intersection of three divergent boundaries or spreading ridges. These three divergent boundaries ideally meet at near 120° angles.
In plate tectonics theory during the breakup of a continent, one of the divergent plate boundaries would fail (see aulacogen) and the other two would continue spreading to form an ocean. The opening of the south Atlantic Ocean started at the south of the South American and African continents, reaching a triple junction in the present Gulf of Guinea, from where it continued to the west. The NE-trending Benue Trough is the failed arm of this junction.
Read more about this topic: Triple Junction
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.”
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976)
“What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,—for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)