ACTIVITY

Instructions:
You will be piecing together a puzzle of the supercontinent Pangea based on
fossil and rock evidence on the present day continents.
1. On the puzzle pieces handout, assign a color to each type of fossil or
mountain belt in the legend and color the areas on the landmasses
according to the legend.
2. Use scissors to cut along the borders of the continents. These are the
approximate shape of the continents after Pangea broke up.
3. Place the continents on a piece of construction paper and move them
around using the fossil and mountain chain evidence to match the continents
together in the position they were in when they were part of Pangea. The pieces
may not fit together exactly!
4. When you have assembled Pangea based on the fossil and rock locations,
glue the continents onto your construction paper in the shape of the
supercontinent. Glue the legend to your puzzle.
 GUIDE QUESTIONS:
1. What is the idea of Continental Drift?
2. Which 2 continents have the most obvious fit of the
coastlines?
3. How were the fossil symbols and mountain belts helpful in
deciding where to move the continents?
4. Why don’t the present shapes of the continents fit perfectly
into a supercontinent?
5. Which fossil occurs on the most landmasses? What does
this suggest about when these particular continents broke
up?
CONTINENTAL DRIFT THEORY
 Major Plates Area in Minor Plates Area in
million km2 million km2
Pacific Plate 103.3 Nasca Plate 5.5

North American 75.9 Philippine Sea 5.5

Plate Plate
Eurasian Plate 67.8 Arabian Plate 5

EARTH’S MAJOR African Plate 61.3 Caribbean 3.3

Plate
AND MINOR Antarctic Plate 60.9 Cocos Plate 2.9
PLATES Indian-Australian 58 Caroline Plate 1.7
Plate
South American 43.6 Scotia Plate 1.6
Plate
Burma Plate 1.1

New Hebrides 1.1

• The Plate Tectonics Theory is a body of
scientific explanations about how the Earth’s
outer layer developed through time, from the
past up to the present.
• It can also predict what will happen to the
Earth in the future.
ALFRED WEGENER
1880-1930

earthobservatory.nasa.gov

Alfred Wegener first proposed the theory of

continental drift.
 Continental drift was Wegener’s theory
that all continents had once been joined
together in a single landmass and have
drifted apart since.
 Wegener named this supercontinent
Pangaea.
 Wegener’s theory was rejected by
scientists because he could not explain
what force pushes or pulls continents.
FIT OF CONTINENTS ACROSS THE
ATLANTIC

MOUNTAIN RANGES IN SOUTH AMERICA

LINE UP EXACTLY WITH THOSE IN
AFRICA!
• The plate tectonics theory explains how the present-day configuration
and the geographic distribution of the continents came to be out of
the breakup of the supercontinent Pangea about 225 million years
ago.
• The present continents fit along their borders, or more appropriately,
along their continental shelves, is not just coincidental matching
because all continents cab be fitted together.
• Tectonic processes are continuously active but slow, the present-day
setup of the continents will also continuously evolve into a different
distribution and configuration after millions of years.
• It would be, perhaps, again possible that the continents would come
together to form a supercontinent.
• Geological features, such as mountain ranges, rock formations with the
same ages, and rock characteristics of continents, such as North
America and Europe, form contiguous bodies when continents are fit
together.
• Mountains ranges, such as the Appalachian Mountains in North
America and Caledonian Mountains in Great Britain and Scandinavia
are made up of the same rock type and have the same ages and rock
characteristics.
• The Paraňa basalts of South America can also be correlated in terms of
their ages and rock characteristics with the Etendeka basalt deposits
from a contiguous body of rocks across these continents.
Notice how fossils lined up across continents!

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/images/history/fossils3.gif
Marker fossils are remains of plants and animals that exhibit special
characteristics, compared to other fossils.
These plants and animals should have existed over a brief period in
Earth’s history and have lived in limited areas on the continents.
Because of these characteristics, their remains which were
embedded and preserved in sedimentary rocks can be used to
accurately mark the time they were alive.
Marker fossils were used as essential evidence to prove the
breakup of the continents as predicted by the Plate Tectonics
Theory.
• The Mesosaurus was a shallow-water reptile that once lived in very
limited areas in South America and Africa. They are known to be
incapable of swimming in deeper waters, so they could not have
possibly migrated from South America to Africa via ocean pathway.
This means that they had existed, when South America and Africa
were still joined together.
• The Glossopteris, a type of seed fern, has fossil remains found in Africa,
South America, India, and Antarctica that were narrowly distributed
across the fitted continents, also confirming that these continents were
once part of a supercontinent during the time when these ferns
thrived.
• The Cynognathus of South America and Africa and the Lystrosaurus of
India, Antarctica and Africa were Triassic lanf reptiles, whose fossil
distribution were found to be narrowly contiguous across these
continents.
Amazing Facts: Did you know...

...that India was once in the

Southern Hemisphere connected to
Antarctica?
...that North America was once
surrounded by warm, tropical seas?
..that Africa was once covered by
glaciers, which were kilometers in
thickness?
...that the Sahara desert was once
a tropical rain forest?
• Paleoclimate is the climate of the past that characterizes an area.
• It is studied and determined using indicator deposits that can
diagnostically and uniquely correlate to specific climatic conditions.
• For example, coal, coral reefs, and evaporites are commonly formed
and deposited under a tropical climate setting but are rarely found in
Arctic or temperate climate settings. They, therefore, serve as accurate
paleoclimate indicators.
• Climatic zones do not change locations but continents change locations
because of their drifting. That is why continents carry with them imprints
or indicators of the climatic regimes which they have experienced
through time.
• Glacial deposits, also called tillites, are found in
South America, Africa, India and Australia or areas
close to equator and far from latitude that
experience glaciation. The mismatch between
these deposits and the tropical or sub-tropical
setting where they are found now indicate
continental drifting.
He could not find the force that was causing the
continents to drift. Because of this, he could not
convince anyone that continents could move. He
died in Greenland on an expedition. At the time
of his death, no one believed his hypothesis!
Technology developed during the 1940’s
changed all that!
DISCOVERY OF SEA-FLOOR SPREADING
 http://platetectonics.pwnet.org/img/blocks.gif

As the sea floor spreads, the lava cools according to the magnetic
poles at the time. The rocks on the ocean floor have proved that
the earth’s magnetic field sometimes reverses. The inner core flips
and so the north pole moves to the southern hemisphere! The
earth itself does not flip.
PLATE TECTONICS THEORY
WHAT CAUSES SEA FLOOR SPREADING? CONVECTION
CURRENTS!
 ANIMATION OF SEA
FLOOR SPREADING

Can you explain this diagram!?

The place where two plates move
apart or diverge is called a divergent
boundary.
This is a model of sea floor spreading at a divergent boundary called a mid
ocean ridge.
 : www.ocean.udel.edu

Did you know that the Earth’s longest mountain range is underwater and is
called the mid-ocean ridge?

The Mid-Ocean Ridge system, shown above snaking its way

between the continents, is more than 56,000 kilometers (35,000 mi)
long. It circles the earth like the stitching on a baseball!
A convergent boundary is
where two plates come
together, or converge. The
result of the plates hitting
together is called a collision.
A transform boundary is a place where
two plates slip past each other, moving in
opposite directions.
The process by
which the ocean
floor sinks
beneath a deep-
ocean trench
and back into
the mantle is
called
WORLDWIDE EARTHQUAKE PATTERNS HELP US KNOW
WHERE THE EDGES OF PLATES ARE LOCATED
THE EARTH’S PLATES
Here you see
the two slides
together.
What do you
see?
http://www.livescience.com/images/pangea_animation_03.gif
WHAT IS THE CONTINENTAL DRIFT THEORY
AND WHAT ARE THE EVIDENCES THAT
SUPPORT IT?
 HOW DOES THE SEAFLOOR SPREADING
SUPPORT THE CONTINENTAL DRIFT THEORY?
Will there be another Pangaea again?