What is Pangaea

Alfred Wegener

• Proposed continental drift in 1915

• proposed all land mass was once a single body
called “Pangaea”
• Pangaea started to drift apart ~200 million
years ago
▪ The west African coastline seems to
snuggle nicely into the east coast of
South America
▪ noticed the same thing and proposed
that the continents were once
compressed into a single
protocontinent which he called
Pangaea
▪ Pangaea means “ All land”
4 Evidences
 The appearance fit of the continent
• The west African coastline seems to snuggle
nicely into the east coast of South America
 Fossil Correlation
• Went through fossils and other evidence of prehistoric life
• Mesosaurus – Ancient reptile , live in fresh water.
• Found only in Eastern cost of South America and Western
cost of Africa
 Rock and mountain correlation

• Mountain rang of North eastern United state and

Northern Europe match up perfectly.
• They made of the same type of rock, the same age of
rock.
 Paleoclimate data
• Look at past climate Data
• Look at cool and warm weather in different
parts of the world.
• Found glacial striations on tropical rain forest
of South America and Africa
Glacial Striations
• Bituminous Coal, fossil fuel
• Made of compacted plant remain
• We can get it in different part of the world
•
• no one believed his ideas until 1950s
• He froze to death on an exploratory
trip to Greenland in 1930
• ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvFg
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