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Transcript
Name______________________________________________ D_____________P____ Continents on the Move In 1910, a young German scientist named Alfred Wegener became curious about why the coasts of several continents matched so well, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He formed a hypothesis that Earth’s continents had moved! Wegener’s hypothesis was that all the continents had once been joined together in a single landmass and have since drifted apart. He named this supercontinent Pangaea, meaning “all lands.” According to Wegener, Pangaea existed about 300 million years ago. Over tens of millions of years, Pangaea began to break apart. The pieces of Pangaea slowly moved toward their presentday locations, becoming the continents of today. The idea that the continents slowly moved over Earth’s surface became known as continental drift. Procedure: • Look at the four drawings of the Earth’s continents below. Match each diagram with the appropriate time listed below. Label the modern continents in each diagram. Times 135 million years ago present day 45 million years ago 250 million years in the future Continents Africa Europe Asia North America Antarctica South America Australia Name______________________________________________ D_____________P____ Questions: 1. What is the crust of the Earth divided up into? 2. What do the plates of the Earth’s crust float on? 3. What was Alfred Wegener’s hypothesis? 4. What was Pangaea? 5. What does the term “Pangaea” mean? 6. Why is continental drift a good name for this theory? __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________