HOW MUCH?

 How much of Earth is covered by water?

ENDOGENIC PROCESSES
Continental Drift
The Global Ocean
 The Pacific Ocean, the largest of the
oceans, also reaches northward from
the Southern Ocean to the Arctic
Ocean. It spans the gap
between Australia and Asia, and
the Americas. The Pacific Ocean meets
the Atlantic Ocean south of South
America at Cape Horn.
The Global Ocean
 The Atlantic Ocean, the second
largest, extends from the
Southern Ocean between
the Americas,
and Africa and Europe, to the
Arctic Ocean. The Atlantic
Ocean meets the Indian Ocean
south of Africa at Cape Agulhas.
The Global Ocean
 The Indian Ocean, the third
largest, extends northward from
the Southern Ocean to India,
the Arabian Peninsula,
and Southeast Asia in Asia, and
between Africa in the west
and Australia in the east. The
Indian Ocean joins the Pacific
Ocean to the east, near
Australia.
The Global Ocean
 The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of
the five. It joins the Atlantic Ocean
near Greenland and Iceland and joins
the Pacific Ocean at the Bering Strait.
It overlies the North Pole,
touching North America in
the Western
Hemisphere and Scandinavia and Sibe
ria in the Eastern Hemisphere. The
Arctic Ocean is partially covered
in sea ice, the extent of which varies
according to the season.
The Global Ocean
 The Southern Ocean is a
proposed ocean surrounding Antarctica,
dominated by the Antarctic
Circumpolar Current, generally the
ocean south of 60 degrees south
latitude. The Southern Ocean is
partially covered in sea ice, the extent
of which varies according to the
season. The Southern Ocean is the
second smallest of the five named
oceans.
Can you see?
 Is there anything peculiar
with the shape of the
continents on opposite
sides of the Atlantic Ocean?
At the end of this discussion, you must
be able to:
 Discuss the history behind the theory of continental drift;
 Describe continental drift theory and
 Enumerate and explain the evidence used to support the idea of
drifting continents
 History of Continental Drift

Year Continental Drift Theory Development

1600’s Idea that the continents fit like pieces of jigsaw
puzzle
1883- Eduard Suess, an Austrian geologist, published a 4-
1909 volume paper entitled Das Antlitz der Erde (The
Face of the Earth) where he claimed that the South
African, South American, and Australian continents
and the Indian subcontinent were once connected by
land bridges and therefore is a large continent which
he called Gondwana or Gondwanaland.
 History of Continental Drift

Year Continental Drift Theory Development

1912 Alfred Lothar Wegener, a German meteorologist
proposed that a single continent, Pangaea,
separated into the current continents and moved
across the Earth’s surface to their present locations.
(The Origin of Continents and Oceans, 1915)
1950- Scientists believe that continents and oceans had
60’s fixed geographic positions. Reluctant to believe that
continents could drift.
Continental Drift

PANGAEA
 an ancient Greek word
meaning “all land” or
“entire earth”.
History of Continental Drift
History of Continental Drift

Year Continental Drift Theory Development

1960-’s Post war boom in oceanography generated new data about the
ocean floor.
Discovery that the ocean floor was not as flat and as featureless as
they had originally thought.
Ocean floor was characterized by deep depressions called
trenches and a network of ridges that encircle the globe.
This lead to the emergence of Seafloor Spreading Hypothesis.
History of Continental Drift
Evidences Supporting Continental Drift

The Fit of Continents

 Opponents of Wegener’s idea disputed his continental fit evidence,
arguing that the fit of the continents’ margins was crude, and that
shorelines were continuously being modified by wave erosion and
depositional processes
 The oceanographic data later on revealed that a much better
approach was to fit the continents together along the continental
slope, where erosion would be minimal.
 However, a perfect fit could still not be achieved. The process of
stretching and thinning of the continental margins and sedimentary
processes (e.g. erosion, delta formation, etc.) could explain some of
the overlaps..
History of Continental Drift
Evidences Supporting Continental Drift

Similarity in Geologic Units and Structures

 Wegener discovered that geologic structures (mountain ranges), as
well as ages and rock types on opposite sides of the Atlantic Oceans,
were identical.
 For example, the Appalachians of the eastern United States and
Canada are similar to the mountain ranges in eastern Greenland,
Ireland, Great Britain, and Norway. (Central Pangaean Mountains)
 Wegener concluded that these belonged to a single mountain range
that became separated as the continents drifted.
Evidences Supporting Continental Drift

Similarity in Geologic Units and Structures

Evidences Supporting Continental Drift

The Appalachians
Evidences Supporting Continental Drift

The Central Pangaean Mountains

Evidences Supporting Continental Drift

The Scottish Highlands

Evidences Supporting Continental Drift

Fossil Match
 Similar fossils of extinct plants and animals of the same age were
found on different continents which are now separated by oceans.
 Wegener argued that these organisms physically could not have
crossed the oceans because organisms adapt to specific types of
environment and their dispersal can be limited by biogeographic
boundaries (e.g. oceans, mountain ranges, etc.)
 A likely explanation for this is that the continents were part of a large
contiguous landmass which later on broke apart and drifted.
Evidences Supporting Continental Drift

Fossil Match
 Glossopteris flora (seed fern) – had large seeds (too large to be
blown away by wind to different continents) and grew only in subpolar
regions, but fossils were widely distributed over Australia, Africa,
India and South America (later on discovered in Antarctica).
 Mesosaurus – a freshwater reptile (cannot cross oceans) whose
fossils were found only in black shales about 260 million years of age
(Permian) in South Africa and Brazil.
 Lystrosaurus and Cynognathus – land reptiles whose fossils were
found across South America, Africa, India and Antarctica. With their
inability to swim and the continent’s differing climates, the organisms
must have lived side by side and that the lands drifted apart after
they became extinct and fossilized.
Evidences Supporting Continental Drift
Evidences Supporting Continental Drift

Fossil Match

Glossopteris & Mesosaurus

Evidences Supporting Continental Drift

Fossil Match

Lystrosaurus & Cynognathus

Evidences Supporting Continental Drift

Glacial and Paleoclimate Evidence

 A glacier is a slowly moving mass or river of ice formed from the
accumulation and compaction of snow on high mountains or in polar
areas.
 As it flows, it carries sediments of different shapes and sizes which
are then deposited and slowly compacted into a soft sedimentary rock
called till (glacial till).
 It also creates grooves or scratches called striations in the underlying
bedrock.
Evidences Supporting Continental Drift

Glacial and Paleoclimate Evidence

 Wegener analyzed glacial tills and striations of ancient times and
found out that glaciers of the same period (late Paleozoic age,
around 300 million years ago) were located in Australia, South
America, Africa, India and Antarctica.
 Except for Antarctica, these continents/countries did not have
subpolar climate that allowed glaciation.
Evidences Supporting Continental Drift

Glacial and Paleoclimate Evidence

 In addition, the striations in the rocks were
consistently pointing in different directions.
Putting the continents together in accordance to
Wegener’s Pangaea shows that the glaciation
only occurred in a small region in Gondwana
(around the South Pole) which then moved
outward to the aforementioned continents.
Evidences Supporting Continental Drift

Glacial and Paleoclimate Evidence

 Reconstructing the location of ancient glaciers led Wegener to
discover that the location of the current poles was not the same as
the ancient ones.
 His studies showed that South Africa was originally at the South Pole
(300 million years ago), which explains the flow direction of the
ancient glaciers.
 Fitting the continents together places the northern half of Pangaea
closer to the tropics and was proven correct by fossil and
climatological evidences.
Evidences Supporting Continental Drift

Glacial and Paleoclimate Evidence

Today we Learned

 There is a theory called the continental drift theory

which states that all continents are attached to each
other as one big continent.
 This continent is called the Pangaea, as proposed by
Alfred Wegener.
 Wegener proposed several evidences about the theory of
continental drift. These are the fit of the continents,
similarities in geologic structures and units, fossil
matches, and glacial and paleoclimate characteristics.
ENDOGENIC PROCESSES
Continental Drift Theory