Continental Drift
Here is one way to correctly connect the shapes for our Continental Drift assignment from last week.
Here is a map of what we believe Pangaea actually looked like.
Notice how not only are things moved closer together, but many of the continents seem like they are twisted. This is because of combinations of boundary types all around each plate. Some of the boundaries are converging / colliding, some of the boundaries are diverging / dividing, and some of the boundaries are transforming / sliding past each other. This results in some of the pieces of this puzzle “twisting” as well as getting further apart over time. (Eurasia appears sideways, North America and South America are both “crooked” … India and Australia are also turned quite a bit from how they appear on the map now.)
An animation of Continental Drift over 3.3 billion years (that’s 3,300,000,000 years).
More resources to use to think about Alfred Wegener’s evidence:
- Continental Fit: https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Plate-Tectonics/Chap1-Pioneers-of-Plate-Tectonics/Alfred-Wegener/Jigsaw-Fit
- Fossil Evidence: https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Plate-Tectonics/Chap1-Pioneers-of-Plate-Tectonics/Alfred-Wegener/Fossil-Evidence-from-the-Southern-Hemisphere
- Glacier Evidence: https://www.thisoldearth.net/Geology_Online-1_Subchapters.cfm?Chapter=3&Row=2
- Landform Evidence: https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Plate-Tectonics/Chap1-Pioneers-of-Plate-Tectonics/Alfred-Wegener/Geological-Fit-of-Coastlines