Continental Drift

Definition
The very slow movement of the continental plates

on the surface of the Earth due to tectonic activity

through geological time.

What is the evidence of Continental

Drift?
Continental Fit
Some continents such as the Western seaboard of
Africa and the Eastern seaboard of South America
seem to fit together as if placed beside each other.

What is the evidence of Continental

Drift?
Geological evidence
Rocks of the same age and type and
displaying the same formations are found
in south-east Brazil and South Africa.
The trends of the mountains in the
eastern USA and north-west Europe are
similar when placed in their old positions.
Similar glacial deposits are found in
Antarctica, South America and India, now
thousands of km apart.
Striations showing the same orientation
when the continents are reunited, are
found in Brazil and West Africa.

Striations means a series of ridges, furrows

or linear marks, and is used in several ways

What is the evidence of Continental

Drift?
Climatic evidence
Parts of Antarctica, North America and
the UK all contain coal deposits of
similar age that were formed in tropical
conditions.
These areas are no longer in tropical
climates which suggests that they have
drifted apart since the Carboniferous
period.
Glacial Striations (scratches in the rocks)
can be found that match in Brazil and
West Africa
Glacial deposits are also very similar in
India, South America and in the Vaal
Valley in South Africa
These landmarks suggest that although
these areas are very far apart now they
once had a very similar climate

What is the evidence of Continental

Drift?
Biological evidence
Similar fossil formations are found on either side of
the Atlantic. For example, a reptile called Mesosaurus,
is found only in South America and Southern African
sediments.

These are dated from the Permian age (aprox. 280million

years ago).

Plant remains from the humid swamps that later

formed coal deposits have been found in India and

Antarctica.
Marsupials are found only in Australia because it
drifted away from the main supercontinent before

What is the evidence of Continental

Drift?
Paleomagnetism
This is when hot magma rises to the earth's surface and cools, the minerals

themselves become magnetized.

Rocks formed in different places on the planet are magnetized differently.
When rock layers were discovered with different magnetism than the original rock, it
points to continental drift.
The Mid Atlantic Ridge was the first piece of evidence to support Wegeners Theory.
2 British Geologists, Vine and Matthews, discovered magnetic stripes or banding
running parallel to the ridge in the 1960s.
These stripes corresponded to times when the Earths magnetic field reversed from
North to South and so on, and iron particles in the erupting magma either side of the
ridge cooled and aligned themselves with the Earths polarity at that time.
These symmetric stripes supported a theory by Hess on sea floor spreading, which
we now know exists at the Ridge. In addition, by studying the stripes rates of
spreading could be calculated.
This has been further supported by studies of the ages of rocks either side of the
ridge. Rocks closest to the ridge are youngest (up to 10 million years old) and those
furthest away are oldest (over 156 million years old) on both sides of the ridge.

Theory of Continental drift

In 1915, the German geologist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener first proposed

the theory of continental drift, which states that parts of the Earth's crust slowly
drift atop a liquid core. The fossil record supports and gives credence to the
theories of continental drift and plate tectonics.
Wegener hypothesized that there was a gigantic supercontinent 200 million years
ago, which he named Pangaea, meaning "All-earth".
Pangaea started to break up into two smaller supercontinents, called Laurasia and
Gondwanaland, during the Jurassic period. By the end of the Cretaceous period,
the continents were separating into land masses that look like our modern-day
continents.
The theory of continental drift was not accepted for many years. One problem was
that a plausible driving force was missing. And it did not help that Wegener was
not a geologist.
Other geologists also believed that the evidence that Wegener had provided was
not sufficient.
It is now accepted that the plates carrying the continents do move across the
Earth's surface; ironically one of the chief outstanding questions is the one
Wegener failed to resolve: what is the nature of the forces propelling the plates?

Jigsaw Evidence
Francis Bacon was one of the first people to note that the

West coast of Africa and Europe seem to have a jigsaw fit

with the Eastern seaboard of North and South America.
Wegner provided more evidence stating that the shape of the
east coast of South America fits the west coast of Africa, like
pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.
Alfred described how the continents would of fit together
forming a super continent which he named Pangea.
However Wegener was trained as an astronomer and a
meteorologist therefore many geologists did not think that he
had the right background to judge or make geological
theories. For this reason they dismissed much of his evidence.

Fossil Evidence in Support of the

Theory
Eduard Suess was an Austrian geologist who first realized that there had

once been a land bridge connecting South America, Africa, India, Australia,
and Antarctica. He named this large land mass Gondwanaland (named after
a district in India where the fossil plant Glossopteris was found).
This was the southern supercontinent formed after Pangaea broke up during
the Jurassic period. Suess based his deductions on the fossil plant
Glossopteris, which is found throughout India, South America, southern
Africa, Australia, and Antarctica.
Fossils of Mesosaurus (one of the first marine reptiles, even older than the
dinosaurs) were found in both South America and South Africa.
These finds, plus the study of sedimentation and the fossil plant
Glossopteris in these southern continents led Alexander duToit, a South
African scientist, to bolster the idea of the past existence of a
supercontinent in the southern hemisphere, Eduard Suess's Gondwanaland.
This lent further support to A. Wegener's Continental Drift Theory

Ocean floor spreading theory

In the 1960s a Scientist called Harry Hess said that not only were the

continents moving but also the sea floor was moving.

The conveyer belt motion of the sea floor meant that youngest rocks
were found on the mid-ocean ridges and then get older, further away
from the mid-ocean ridge. This shows that the sea floor is spreading
and ultimately moving the continents to cause the continental drift.
Hess said that the movement of the sea floor
was to do with the convection currents in the
mantle because the hot magma that rises is
less dense than the cooler magma; this magma
cools are forms new rocks when it reaches the
seas surface and consequently other magma
that rises pulls the sea floor apart moving the continents around. Then
at the plate boundaries the cool rocks sinks and melts from the
mantles heat.

2 new supercontinent
South African geologist Alexander du Toit maps out

a northern super-continent, "Laurasia," to explain

coal deposits, which presumably indicate the
remains of equatorial plants, in the Northern
Hemisphere.
Laurasia formed when Pangea broke up to form 2
smaller supercontinents.
The other supercontinent was located
in the southern hemisphere and was
known as Gondwanaland.

Jack Oliver
Jack Oliver provided a research

paper on plate tectonics that

proved vital in providing hard
evidence for the existence of
continental drift, which was
released in 1968.
The 1968 paper finally proved
Wegener right and continental
drift was accepted by the world
of science.