To understand continental drift we have to understand how these elements, or plates , move. The study of the crustal plates and their movement is call plate tectonics . Making it Work The evidence for continental drift seems irrefutable. For many years, however, no one understood what forces made it work. Current form within any liquid when it is heated, just as they do in a pot of boiling soup.
Similar currents form with the Earth's thick, dense mantle.
Radioactivity in the Earth's core causes uneven heating of the lower mantle. As the semi-molten rock of the mantle is heated, it rises, creating massive, slow convection currents within the Earth. The heated rock spreads laterally at the base of the solid lithosphere, dragging fragments of the Earth's crust with it. As the Earth's crust moves, volcanoes and earthquakes occur. Powerful convection currents pulls the Earth's crust apart.