Reuniting Gondwanaland 1.23.12
In 1912, Alfred Wegener proposed his Theory of Continental Drift. He noted how the current day continents seemed to be able to fit together like a giant world puzzle. He and Alexander Du Toit noted that fossil data also supported the idea that the continents must have once been joined. Wegner believed that 225 million years ago, all of the land masses of Earth formed one large continent, which he named Pangaea. The fossil records indicate 25 million years later, Pangaea divided into two continents, Laurasia and Gondawanaland. Wegner did not know why or how the continents moved, but he did find evidence that the continents had moved."Continental drift is the movement of the Earth's continents relative to each other. The hypothesis that continents 'drift' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596 and was fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912. In the 1960s the theory of plate tectonics incorporated and improved upon continental drift: the Earth's surface seems to be broken into about ten major tectonic plates moving as the sea floor spreads, with the continents frozen into them."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_drift
Continental Drift: hypothesis that continents had once formed a single land mass and then moved away from each other
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_drift
Continental Drift: hypothesis that continents had once formed a single land mass and then moved away from each other
1. What clues did you use to help reunite Gondwanaland?
The fossils of animals found on the continents helped us put the continents back into place to form Gondwanaland.
2. Why do you think Wegener believed the fossils were evidence that supported his Theory of Continental Drift?
If these species needed the same environment, then they would have to have been on the same continent with the same conditions.
The fossils of animals found on the continents helped us put the continents back into place to form Gondwanaland.
2. Why do you think Wegener believed the fossils were evidence that supported his Theory of Continental Drift?
If these species needed the same environment, then they would have to have been on the same continent with the same conditions.