Pangaea

A puzzle of epic proportions The super continent of Pangaea was once made up of all the land masses we recognize on our earth today. Everyone should have an envelope with some cut outs of the continents. Take the next few minutes to try and put the continents together into a puzzle, this puzzle will give you a good idea of how Pangaea looked over 200 million years ago Do they all fit together? What do you notice about the ways they do or do not match up?

What does “Pangaea” mean anyways? What exactly is Pangaea … ? How do we know what it was like 200 mya if no one is alive to tell us about it? If there was only one continent, was there only one ocean? What was it called? What happened to Pangaea, how did it separate? If the continents moved around millions of years ago how do we know they won’t do it again? ¿Pangaea Questions? These are ALL good questions… Lets see if we can find out for ourselves!

Define Pangaea… The word Pangaea comes from Greek words “pan” and “gaia” “pan” meaning “entire” “gaia” meaning “earth” Therefore Pangaea literally means “Entire Earth.” Which seems fitting because it was composed of every land mass on the entire Earth!

What is Pangaea? Pangaea is a super continent that is said to have existed from the Permian through the Jurassic period in our earth’s history.

What is Pangaea? Alfred Wegner first suggested the existence of Pangaea while exploring his theory of continental drift. He theorized that millions of years ago the continents were all formed together in one land mass that he called Pangaea. Alfred couldn’t explain what force had the power to move the continents, but his evidence had him convinced of his theory. ( Contdrift.shtml) Alfred Wegner

What evidence? There are a few sources of evidence supporting the existence of Pangaea… –Fossils –Magnetic orientation of rocks and minerals –Matching coastlines (like puzzle pieces!)

When we learned about the rock cycle we learned that rocks can be made by the heat from the earth melting them down to make new rocks. Minerals in the rocks that respond to magnets cool down and position themselves to point to magnetic North Since we see that minerals in the earth are not oriented to magnetic North, we can conclude that the change in magnetic orientation is a result of continental drift. Igneous Rock Metamorphic Rock Sedimentary Rock Igneous Rock Metamorphic Rock Sedimentary Rock

Did anyone notice any more puzzle like coastlines when we assembled our map of Pangaea ?

Since all the continents were joined in one land mass ( Pangaea ), the remaining area of our earth was covered in ocean! This ocean is referred to as, Panthalassa.

Do you guys remember learning about plate tectonics? Alfred’s theory of continental drift inspired other scientists to develop the theory we know today as plate tectonics. This answered his troublesome question regarding what force was strong enough to move continents. Now that we know about continental and oceanic plates, Alfred’s theory on the existence of Pangaea and continental drift doesn’t seem so far fetched…