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About 200 million years ago, all the continents on
the Earth were actually one huge "supercontinent"
surrounded by one enormous ocean. This gigantic
continent, called
Pangaea
, slowly broke apart and
spread out to form the continents we know today.
Sound amazing? Believe it or not, the continents
have come together and spread apart at least
three times before. After all, our planet is 4.5
billion years old. On that time scale, 200 million
years ago isn't such a long time!
What can make the continents move? Plate
Tectonics!
Scientists have found many kinds of evidence that
support this idea. Here are just a few:
The shapes of continents fit together like a
puzzle. Just look at the east coast of South
America and the west coast of Africa—it's
almost a perfect fit!
Identical rocks have been found on different continents. These rocks formed millions of years ago, before the continents separated. They formed from the same minerals and under the same conditions.
Fossils of the same kinds of dinosaurs, Mesosaurus,
have been found in South America and Africa. These
dinosaurs roamed the Earth before the two
continents broke apart.
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