I see globes all the time and the continents look like they fit perfectly together like puzzle pieces. Just a thought and question to someone who has knowledge in the subject
In: Geology
Good observation. Previous commenters described it well. Read up on Alfred Wegener. He was the first to develop a full theory about it (continental drift) a 100 years ago. Interesting story. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Wegener
What you’re seeing is actually some of the first evidence we had for plate tectonics! Pangaea was the most recent supercontinent, but the various tectonic plates have been moving around for like 4 billion years, and continents have mashed together and broken up multiple times.
Yes. Many times. Continents at just the topmost part of vast tectonic plates that float on the liquid layer of magma. They are constantly moving, very very slowly, and they push against each other, slide under each other or sink both edges into layers below. Indian plate once collided with the Eurasian one and made Himalayas by pushing the edges upwards. East African rift, which you can follow from Djibouti all the way to Malawi by the line of depression and lakes is splitting Africa into two. Between 350-175 million years ago, all or most parts of the current continents (the ones that were not submerged or later created by uplift/sedimentation etc) were part of a single landmass that was aptly naked Pangea.
Yes. All 7 continents were once a supercontinent named pangea but over time they split into different land masses.
Yep, the continents have come together and split apart again several times over the Earth’s long history. Continents are part of tectonic plates (plates with continents on always include oceanic crust as well, though you can also get plates which are *just* oceanic crust), and the plates are constantly moving around on the spherical Earth, some of them moving apart, some of them sliding underneath others, and some of them crumpling together (hello mountain ranges!)
Alfred Wegener piecing together evidence of the continents’ most recent unification (which he named Pangea) was a major step towards our current theory of plate tectonics — just by establishing that the continents can change relative positions, but the full theory didn’t really get going until we had evidence from physics of what plates are and how they move, rather than just fossils which match up on either side of the Atlantic and such. There’s an excellent little video on the history of plate tectonics [here.](https://youtube.com/watch?v=nCIR0pZuqck)
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