Fun with Science Club®


			Continents are moving. Beth Tyler 05.03.01 The location of continents have moved from their original positions. In fact, all the land on the earth used to be joined in one supercontinent. Over billions of years, the continents have drifted to where they are today. In 1915 a German scientist named Alfred Wegener proposed the idea that continents move. He called his theory of moving continents "continental drift". By looking at a map, Professor Wegener noticed that Africa and South America seemed to fit together. This hypothesis predicted that the rocks on the western coastline of Africa are like the rocks on the eastern coastline of South America. He tested this prediction by looking at the kind of rocks (a science called geology) found the two coastlines, and discovered that they matched, too. He also looked at data on animal fossils (a science called paleontology), because his idea predicted that in ancient times the same animals had lived on Africa and on South America. Animal fossils on the two coasts also matched, showing that in antiquity the same animals had lived on Africa and on South America. Because these animals couldn't swim across the ocean, they must have at one time lived closer to each other. Even though Professor Wegener had several lines of evidence, many of his fellow scientists thought his ideas were crazy. Doubters have since been proven wrong! Not only do scientists today continue to collect evidence from rocks and fossils, but now they can even measure the movement of continents.


			Wicander, Reed, and James S. Monroe. 1995. Essentials of Geology, West Publishing Company, pg. 18-22.