PANGAEA. ALFRED WEGENER German climatologist and geophysicist who, in 1915, published an expanded version of his 1912 book The Origin of Continents.

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.