How do we know what Pangea looked like?

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I was watching a video about the Permian period of Earth’s history (*watch out for those Dinogorgans!)* and they talked about where various animals lived across the Pangea supercontinent.

It got me thinking – how do we know exactly what Pangea looked like? How do we know that, for example, Iran and Tibet were islands way back then? Is there enough geological evidence to be super confident about the make up of the super continent? Or is sort of a “best guess”?

In: Planetary Science

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Geological features! Rocks are not identical, there are lots of different types of rock, and lots of variations even within a given type of rock. So, if you find an unusual type of rock in two different places, its likely that those places actually used to be closer together sometime in the past. A classic example of this is that the Appalachian mountains in the USA and the Scottish Highlands are actually part of the same ancient mountain range, identifiable by unique and distinct rock formations and types that are present in both locations, even though they are now separated by an entire ocean!

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