How Did Pangaea Support The Theory Of Continental Drift

The Theory of Continental Drift was proposed by Alfred Wegener. He claimed that the continents were once connected and had drifted apart over time. Alfred believed that the continents had moved apart into their current day positions, and were still moving. He called the land mass where all the continents were connected a supercontinent, and named it Pangaea which means, “one earth.” There are many pieces of evidence that support the theory of Continental Drift and Pangaea, but in my essay, I will focus on South America. In Pangaea, South America was directly bordered by Africa and Antarctica, with the ocean to the west. South America was located in the southwest corner of Pangaea, with Africa to the northeast and Antarctica along South America’s

On both continents, there are regions where fossils of the Mesosaurus, a small reptile, have been found. This would not be strange if the fossils had been found everywhere, but these fossils have only been discovered in Africa and South America. Some scientists have thought that the Mesosaurus could have swum across the sea, but the reptile's body was not made for long-distance swimming. Also, if it had indeed swum across the ocean, it seems likely that the Mesosaurus would have been found in a lot more places. Others suggest that small islands had been scattered across the sea, and the reptiles had rested there, but no evidence if these islands have been found. If the continents had been touching and were one big landmass, then the Mesosaurus could have walked across easily. The region in which the Mesosaurus lived is split in half between Africa and South America. If you line up the coastlines, the regions match up perfectly! I used this information to figure out that Africa and South America were once together in Pangaea. By looking at the region and the information about the Mesosaurus, I was able to line up and put together the two continents

Glacial striations, or marks left by glaciers scraping the ground were discovered on all of these continents. The marks were all the same age, so they must have been made in the same time period. Scientists can tell where glaciers used to be located because of the striations. These marks were found in places that have a very warm climate today. This is evidence that these continents were once located in a colder area of the earth. The colder part of the Earth is the northern hemisphere, which is where North America, Asia, and Europe are located. Since I know this, I connected the continents with the glacial striations to the continents with a colder climate. This makes it possible for glaciers to have formed and moved across continents that now have a warm climate. This helped me know how to place the continents in my Pangaea because from this information I could get the general area of where each continent is located, and what’s around it. I could tell that South America was surrounded by Africa and Australia because the glacier marks were the same age and went in the same direction. If the continents were far apart, this phenomenon would be almost impossible. When I lined up the glacier marks, the positions of the continents matched the positioning based on other evidence and helped me confirm my