Continental Drift Activity Packet

Continental Drift Activity Packet Instructions: You will be piecing together a puzzle of the supercontinent Pangea based on fossil and rock evidence on the present day continents. 1. On the puzzle pieces handout, assign a color to each type of fossil or mountain belt in the legend and color the areas on the landmasses according to the legend. 2. Use scissors to cut along the borders of the continents. These are the approximate shape of the continents after Pangea broke up. 3. Place the continents on a piece of construction paper and move them around using the fossil and mountain chain evidence to match the continents together in the position they were in when they were part of Pangea. The pieces may not fit together exactly! 4. When you have assembled Pangea based on the fossil and rock locations, glue the continents onto your construction paper in the shape of the supercontinent. Glue the legend to your puzzle. Questions: 1. What is the idea of Continental Drift? 2. Which 2 continents have the most obvious fit of the coastlines? 3. How were the fossil symbols and mountain belts helpful in deciding where to move the continents? 4. Why don’t the present shapes of the continents fit perfectly into a supercontinent? 5. Which fossil occurs on the most landmasses? What does this suggest about when these particular continents broke up? Evidence or Not? On the Analyzing Evidence worksheet, read the statement in each box and check whether the statement is evidence or not in the left columns, and whether is supports the movements of the continents in the right columns. Fossil and Mountain Chain Evidence DIRECTIONS: 1) Label each continent with its name. 2) Color the fossils or mountains in the legend and color the symbols on each continent in the colors of the legend. 3) Cut out the continents and match up the fossil and mountain evidence to recreate Pangea. 4) Glue the continents into place on your contruction paper. Greenland India The European Flora Cynognathus reptile Lystrosaurus reptile Glossopteris plant Mesosaurus reptile Alpine Mountains Analyzing Evidence: Continental Drift Is it evidence? Yes Statements Does it support the idea that the continents have moved? Yes No 1. 1858: Geologist Eduard Seuss points out that fossils of the Glossopteris plant are found in southern Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, and India. 2. Wegener examines the location of tiny rocks and the direction of grooves formed by large glaciers scraping across southern areas of Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, and India. He concludes that if all these places were fitted together, they would form a continuous ice sheet expanding outward in all directions. 3. Frankfurt News, Januar y 6, 1 912: Announcement that German scientist Alfred Wegener will speak at the Geological Association meeting. 4. Popular Geology magazine, March 12, 1912: “Continents are so large they must always have been where they are.” 5. Wegener observes that a South American mountain range in Argentina lines up with an ancient African mountain r ange in South Africa when the two continents ar e placed together. He writes: “It is just as if we were to refit the torn pieces of a newspaper by matching their edges and then check whether the lines of print ran smoothly across. If they do, ther e is no thing lef t but t o conclude t hat t he pieces were in fact joined in t his way.” 6. 1927: Geologist Alexander du Toit observes rock layers on the western coas t of Africa in the following sequence: basalt rock, shale containing fossil reptiles, coal layers containing Glossopteris fossils, rocks containing Mesosaurus fossils, and shale. He discovers an almost identical sequence of r ock la yers on the eastern coast of South America. 7. 1944: Geologist Baily Willis calls Wegener’s theory a fairy tale. He argues that the theory should be ignored. 8. 1965: Geologist Edward Bullard uses computers to match coasts of Sout h Amer ica and Africa. They match extremely well at an ocean depth of 1,000 meters. 9. 1980s: Satellites and lasers are used to measure the movement of continents. They continue to move at an average of about 2 cm (0.8 in) per year. 10. Fossils of Megascolecina ear thworms are found in South America, Africa, India, and Australia, as well as the islands of Madagascar and New Guinea. No