South America and Africa ‘fit together’ and were likely connected when they were part of Pangea.
How does this work, when there is a massive amount of ‘plate’ between them? South America is on the left of the South American Plate, and Africa is quite central on the African plate.
In: Planetary Science
This has already been answered fairly well on this thread years ago: [https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/b9bsc3/do_tectonic_plates_ever_change_in_size_and_or/](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/b9bsc3/do_tectonic_plates_ever_change_in_size_and_or/)
The TLDR of it though is that the plates have cores that are quite stable, while the outer parts change a lot. So while the landmasses we’re used to are fairly stable, everything around them and between them is not. Which is why the central landmasses seem to fit together, despite having stuff in between them.
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