Wegener Wegener – before his time!!! He noticed something interesting… the coast of Africa and...

Wegener

• Wegener – before his time!!!

• He noticed something interesting… the coast of Africa and South America looked like they would fit together!!!

• Then he noticed that there were fossils that were found on opposite sides of the ocean! BUT – these animals could not swim long distances!!!

• Plant fossils, Animal Fossils, Coal Beds, and some mountain ranges that looked very much alike.

• This lead to the idea of Continental Drift

Gondwana - Gondwanaland

Mesosaurus

Glossopteris fossil from Antarctica

Lystrosaurus

Cynognathus

• Gondwanaland is named after the Upper Paleozoic and Mesozoic formations of the Gondwana district of central India, which display a number of shared geologic features (the "Gondwana beds").

The Ice Matches a continental ice sheet covered parts of South America, southern Africa, India, and southern Australia about 300 million years ago. Glacial striations (Grooves etched) on rocks show that glaciers moved from Africa toward the Atlantic Ocean and from the Atlantic Ocean onto South America. This works if the Atlantic Ocean was missing and the continents joined.

A Glacier and what you can see afterwards

Alaska and Minnesota / Illinois

Plates today

Tectonic Plates - names

How do we know where the plate boundaries are?

Look for the Earthquakes and Volcanoes!

Blue – deepRed - shallow

• Volcanoes & Earthquakes here – where Africa is starting to rip apart