Question

The North American and European continents are moving apart at a rate of about 3 cmly. At this rate how long will it take them to drift 500 km farther apart than they are at present?

Answer 1

To determine the time to drift 500 km apart, convert the distance to centimeters and divide by the drift rate. It would take approximately 16.7 million years for the two continents to drift 500 km apart at 3 cm/year.

Step-by-step explanation:

To calculate how long it will take for the North American and European continents to drift 500 km farther apart at a rate of about 3 cm per year, we will first need to convert the distance from kilometers to centimeters. There are 100,000 centimeters in a kilometer, so 500 km is equal to 500,000 × 100 = 50,000,000 centimeters. Now, we'll divide this distance by the annual drift rate.

50,000,000 cm ÷ 3 cm/year = 16,666,666.67 years

Therefore, it would take approximately 16.7 million years for the continents to drift 500 kilometers apart at the current rate.