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PANGAEA
ALFRED WEGENER
German climatologist and geophysicist who, in 1915,
published an expanded version of his 1912 book The
Origin of Continents and Oceans.
This work was one of the first to suggest continental
drift and plate tectonics.
He suggested that a supercontinent he called
Pangaea had existed in the past.
PANGAEA THEORY
The word 'Pangaea' means 'all lands' in
Greek, accurately defining the way the
continents were 200 millions years ago
before it split up.
PANGAEA THEORY
These split-up pieces drifted slowly apart
and became the way they are today.
Even until now, the shape of the Earth
surface is still changing, and it will be forever,
as long as the mantle underneath the Earth's
crust gets heated and convection currents in
the magma keeps dragging the plates.
PANGAEA THEORY
The Pangaea theory was treated with much
skepticism when it was first raised.
But since then, there has been much
evidence to support this theory.
CONTINENTAL COAST LINES APPEARING TO FIT TOGETHER
One prominent example of continental coastline fitting
together is to fit the coastline of the West Coast of Africa with
the coastline East Coast of South America.
It can be seen that they fit well, like pieces of a jigsaw
puzzle.
This helps to prove that these continents were once joined
together as one whole Pangaea and broke away to form these
two land masses now.
FOSSIL DISTRIBUTION
Matching fossil of reptiles have been found in Africa and South
America, further proving that these two continents were actually so
close to each other or even joined, that reptiles could travel to and
fro between them easily.
Identical fossil ferns have also been found in all southern
continents, and also embedded in the same layer sequence,
suggesting the proximity the southern continents were in millions of
years ago that allowed the growing of these ferns in the same climate
and soil.
DISTINCTIVE ROCK STRATA
Geologists have discovered that the geological
structures of the rocks in South West Africa and South
East Brazil were distinctively identical, and the age of
the rocks at these two areas were the same.
This distinctive rock strata shared by the two land
masses suggests that these two areas were once
joined together.
COAL DISTRIBUTION
Coal can be found underneath the cold and dry Antarctic ice cap,
though coal can only form in warm and wet conditions.
This could mean that Antarctica was once together with the other
continents as part of the Pangaea, and was once in a warm and humid
region.
Coal was formed before Antarctica drifted away to its present cold
and dry climate.
That is why the coal can be found buried under the thick layer of ice
and snow.