Claim: Scientists need to use scale models to help understand geological events and periods.
Evidence: Geological events, like earthquakes or the formation of mountains, happen over a long time and over large areas. For example, the movement of tectonic plates can take millions of years and cover thousands of kilometers. It’s hard to see these processes happening in real life because they take so long and are too big to observe all at once. Scale models can represent these large events in a smaller and simpler way.
Reasoning: By using scale models, scientists can visualize and explain complex processes. These models allow us to see how different forces work together over time, helping us to understand things like how mountains grow or how oceans form. They make it easier for both scientists and the public to grasp huge concepts in geology that would be difficult to understand without a simplified representation. Overall, scale models are important tools that help us explore and explain the Earth’s history.