At the beginning of the 20th century, the German meteorologist Alfred Wegener raised a hypothesis that created a great controversy among the scientific class of the time. According to him, approximately 200 million years ago, the continents did not have the current configuration, because there was only a continental mass, that is, the Americas were not separated from Africa and the Oceania.
This continuous continental mass was called Pangea, from the Greek "all the Earth", and was surrounded by a single ocean, called Pantalassa.
After millions of years, Pangea fragmented and gave rise to two megacontinents called Laurasia and Gondwana, this separation occurred slowly and developed over an oceanic subsoil of basalt.
After this process, these two megacontinents gave rise to the current configuration of the continents we know. To conceive such a theory, Wegener took as a starting point the outline of the American coast with that of Africa, which visually has an almost perfect fit. However, this fact alone did not support his scientific hypothesis.
Another important discovery to support his theory was the comparison of fossils found in the Brazilian region and in Africa, he found that such animals were unable to cross the Atlantic Ocean, so he concluded that the animals would have lived in the same environments at one time. remotes.
Even after all the information contained in the hypothesis, the theory was not accepted, it was ridiculed by the scientific class. His hypothesis was only confirmed in 1960, 30 years after Wegener's death, becoming the most accepted.
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
Eduardo de Freitas
Graduated in Geography
Brazil School Team
continents - geography - Brazil School
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
SCHOOL, Team Brazil. "Pangeia"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/geografia/pangeia.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.