The continental drift theory was first proposed by a German called Alfred Wenger in 1915. He suggested that the earth’s continents were once joined together, but gradually moved apart over millions of years. This once ‘supercontinent’ was known as Pangea – which translates to ‘’All Earth’’. Pangaea started to break up into two smaller supercontinents, called Laurasia and Gondwanaland, during the Jurassic period. By the end of the Cretaceous period, the continents were separating into land masses that look like our modern-day continents. However, Wenger did not have the evidence to explain how these continents could move. Over the course of this essay I will review some of the evidence that support continental drift, such as fossil records and mountain ranges.
One of the strongest pieces of evidence is Continental break up/fit, this is the idea that the continents were once joined together. This theory became apparent when Alfred Wenger identified that the edge of tectonic plates, continental shelf, seeming to fit together in a jig-saw fashion. For example, if you take the eastern edge of South America and the Western side of Africa they fit together almost perfectly, too perfect for it to be a coincidence. Note that it is the edge of the tectonic plates themselves that fit together and not the forever changing individual shorelines of the countries. Continental fit is the case with all the continents around the world. Therefore continental break up is a strong piece of evidence to support the theory of continental drift.
Geology of rock formations and mountain ranges on separate continents were also suggested by Wenger as evidence of continental drift. Areas of South America and Africa have rocks of the same age, around 550 million years old, and composition. Mountain ranges tell a similar story, For example the Cairngorm mountain range in countries such as