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Continental Drift In Australia

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Continental Drift

The world has not always looked how it does today. Gondwana, originally known as 'Gondwanaland', was an ancient southern supercontinent that formed as the result of the division of a much larger supercontinent known as Pangaea. Pangaea existed around 500 million years ago until 150 to 300 million years ago when it broke apart to form the super continents Gondwana and Laurasia. Gondwana was composed of South America, Africa, Madagascar, India, Australia, Antarctica, the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian Subcontinent. The weather and climate on Gondwana was on average considerably warmer than today, however there were very different climatic cycles over millions of years. The inland parts of Gondwana were dry, since they were closed in by large mountain chains that blocked all rainfall, however parts of the supercontinent near the equator were lush, tropical rainforest. …show more content…

His theory was that the continents were always moving or drifting away from one another, however his idea was rejected from the lack of a mechanism. Nowadays, it is known that the continents rest on large slabs of rock called tectonic plates. The pates are constantly moving and interacting in a process called plate tectonics. The movement of Earth's tectonic plates formed Gondwana and broke it apart. The tectonic plates move as a consequence of mid oceanic ridges where adjacent plates are forced apart in different directions. Convection currents, seafloor spreading and rift valleys also drive the movement of the Earth’s plates. When Gondwana drifted apart, Antarctica, South America, Africa and Australia moved into the southern hemisphere and the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian Subcontinent moved into the northern hemisphere. The tectonic plates are always moving and the Australian plate is moving northwards at about 3cm per

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Thus the subcontinent can only support low numbers of people. 10,000 years ago, New Guinea and Australia were connected by a land bridge. This allowed travel between the continents but because of melting glaciers raising the water level, travel by foot today is impossible. New Guineas climate is moister than Australia’s but does not support a lot of protein rich foods. Australia did not learn most of the complex technologies from the New Guinea as one would have thought.

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In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the north to south position of a point on the Earth's surface also describing an angle which ranges from 0° at the Equator to 90° (North or South) at the poles. The countries of Egypt and Botswana, both located on the continent of Africa, have many weather related similarities and some differences, though each are generally equidistance from the equator on opposite Hemispheres. Botswana, Africa sits in the Southern Hemisphere at 22° S while Egypt, Africa sits in the Northern Hemisphere at 26°N. To fully understand the two countries and their weather similarities and differences, one must first look at the climactic tendencies of the continent of Africa.

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Uluru is a massive sandstone in the Northern Territory. Uluru is sacred land towards the indigenous people of Australia, and was originally geologically formed by the big crustal blocks that formed Australian continent being brought together by a block called Musgrave Province (abc.net.au) was pushed from the south of Australia creating mountains. Uluru is a unique place many people visit mainly because of the “rock art” in the shelters at Mala Walk, Kuniya Walk and Mutitjulu waterhole. Traditionally the indigenous people would make their paint from natural elements like naturals minerals, mixed with water, or sometimes animals fat. The common colours used were red, yellow, orange, white, grey and black.

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Another geologists Alexander du Toit, picked up the research that Wegener started and gathered more evidence to prove continental drift. His developments included looking at the glacial deposits in the Gondwana and coal deposits of the same age from the Northern Hemisphere and found they differed because of the climate regions. He took the Gondwana land masses (South America, Africa, India, Australia, and Antarctica) and moved them to the South Pole and placed the Northern lands called Laurasia (North

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