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Continental drift – rebuild Pangaea from Wegener's evidence

GeographyEarth's Structure & LandformsAges 15–16

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Use with my class

A world map with the continents where they are today and the evidence Alfred Wegener used: fossils of Mesosaurus, Cynognathus, Lystrosaurus and Glossopteris; matching mountain belts and rocks more than 2 billion years old; glacial deposits and striations about 300 million years old; coal in Antarctica; marsupials and flightless birds. Drag and turn seven continents towards Africa to rebuild Pangaea: when a piece fits, its evidence belts join across the coastline. The Timeline view runs the break-up of Pangaea from 200 million years ago to today with a sea-floor age map: the ocean floor gets younger towards the mid-ocean ridges and disappears as you go back in time. Measure the width of the South Atlantic and the past latitude of any point.

Lesson: Continental drift: Wegener's evidence, Pangaea and the break-up of the supercontinent

What it shows

Alfred Wegener argued in 1912 that the continents were once joined in a supercontinent, Pangaea. Each continent here is a rigid piece that turns on the sphere by finite rotations, as in plate reconstructions: South America by Bullard's 1965 fit, North America by Klitgord and Schouten (1986), the others by matching coastline points. The evidence sits where it is found today: Mesosaurus in Brazil and southern Africa, Glossopteris on every southern continent, the Appalachian–Caledonian mountains, 2-billion-year-old rocks, glacial striations and coal in Antarctica. The timeline adds a simplified sea-floor age map and Africa's northward drift from palaeomagnetic data.

How to use

In Puzzle, drag a continent towards Africa and turn it with the round handle or the ⟲ ⟳ buttons until it snaps into place; the evidence table shows which belts now join. Hint shows the target outline and Show solution animates the answer. In Timeline, drag the time slider or press Run, tap a continent to place the marker, and press Record to log its latitude and the South Atlantic width.

Parameters you can change

  • View Pangaea puzzle, Timeline
  • Time (million years ago) 0–200 Ma
  • Fossils
  • Mountains and old rocks
  • Glacial evidence
  • Coal
  • Living animals
  • Sea-floor age

Questions to explore

  1. Why do fossils of the freshwater reptile Mesosaurus in Brazil and South Africa support continental drift?
  2. What do 300-million-year-old glacial deposits in India tell you about where India was then?
  3. Where is the floor of the Atlantic Ocean youngest, and why does it get older towards the coasts?

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