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Lecture 4
Continental Drift

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 Continental Drift
• The idea that continents fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, especially South America and Africa,
suggesting that they were once connected
• More thought was given to this idea after Alfred Wegener published “The origins of continents
and oceans”
• A super continent called Pangaea once
existed
• About 200 Ma years ago this super
continent began breaking into
two smaller continents, Laurasia
and Gondwanaland
• Continents then broke up further
and drifted to their present
positions.

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 Evidence of Continental Drift

• Fit of the continents

• Distribution of Fossils
• Matching geological units
• Locations of past glaciations
• Distribution of equatorial climatic belts

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Fit of the continents
• Similarity between coastlines on
opposite sides of the South Atlantic
• Northwest coast of Africa against
the eastern coast of North America
• Australia, Antarctica and India all
connect to southeast of Africa
• Greenland, Europe and Asia pack
against the north-eastern margin of
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 • Identical fossils found on widely
Distribution of fossils separated landmasses

• Mesosaurus: A fresh water reptile,

inhabited parts of South America

and Africa
• Glossopteris: A species of seed,
fern flourished in South America,

India, Africa, Antarctica and

Australia
• Cynognathus: Land dwelling
reptile lived in southern South
America and Africa
• Lystrosaurus: Land dwelling
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reptile inhabited Africa, India and
Antarctica
 Matching
Geological Units

• The same rock assemblages occur

on east coast of South America
and west coat of Africa
• If the continents were joined, then
these rock groups would have
been adjacent to one another
• Belts of rocks in the Appalachian
Mountains in USA and Canada
resemble those found in
Greenland, Great Britain,
Scandinavia, and North West
Africa
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 Past Glaciations
• When a glacier moves it scrapes some
sediments from the ground and carries it along
and as glaciers move they cause striations on
underlying rocks
• Today, glaciers are found only in polar regions
and in high mountains
• Several times during Earth’s history glaciers
covered large areas of continents
• These times are known as ice ages
• A major ice age occurred about 260-280Ma
years ago
• Glaciers occurred in southern South America,
southern Africa, southern India, Antarctica and
southern Australia as indicated by glacial rocks
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 Equatorial Climatic
Belts
• If the southern part of Pangaea was along
the south pole (glaciations), then during
that same time, southern North America,
southern Europe and north west Africa
would have been over the equator and
would have tropical to subtropical
climates
• Evidence of such climatic conditions
may be found in sedimentary rocks of
the same time interval
• Tropical climates results in swampy and
jungle like areas which favours the
formation of coal
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 Even with all this evidence,
Alfred Wegener’s could not
explain HOW or WHY the
continents were moving.

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