Continental Drift

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Across
  1. 1. With ________________, researchers discovered that earthquakes tended to occur in specific places rather than equally all over Earth
  2. 6. A more popular name for this huge ancient landmass is Pangaea, which means “_____ ______” in Greek
  3. 7. This map displays an early "_____________," Gondwana, which eventually moved to form the continents we know today.
  4. 10. Over millions of years, Wegener suggested, the __________ had drifted apart.
  5. 12. According to this theory, Earth’s crust is broken into roughly _________ sections called tectonic plates on which the continents ride
  6. 14. Because continental drift is still pushing India into Asia, the _____________ are still growing.
  7. 17. Today, we know that the _________ rest on massive slabs of rock called tectonic plates
  8. 19. Fossil remains of the ________ reptile Mesosaurus
  9. 20. Today, the theory of continental drift has been __________ by the science of plate tectonics.
  10. 21. Continental Drift _______ Plate Tectonics
  11. 25. The presence of mesosaurus suggests a single ________ with many lakes and rivers
Down
  1. 2. These include Pannotia, which formed about 600 __________ years ago, and Rodinia, which existed more than a billion years ago
  2. 3. buoyant, _______ rock rises up from deep within Earth, it emerges from the space between spreading tectonic plates and hardens, creating a ridge.
  3. 4. “All we can do is make _______________ of how plate motions will continue, what new things might happen, and where it will all end up.”
  4. 5. But the continents actually are shifting, very ________, relative to one another
  5. 8. Researchers have dubbed this ___________ continental configuration “Pangaea Proxima.”
  6. 9. Over millions of years, Pangaea separated into pieces that moved ______ from one another.
  7. 11. Africa, for example, will eventually _______ along the Great Rift Valley system
  8. 12. This shift from one _______ to another is an example of the scientific process
  9. 13. Wegener never lived to see his theory accepted—he died at the age of ________ while on an expedition in Greenland
  10. 15. These plants were not the hardy specimens adapted to _______ in the Arctic climate.
  11. 16. Wegener suggested that perhaps the rotation of the Earth caused the continents to shift _________ and apart from each other. (It doesn't.)
  12. 18. __________ spreading is most dynamic along giant underwater mountain ranges known as mid-ocean ridges.
  13. 22. South America and Africa were not the only continents with ________ geology
  14. 23. Wegener, trained as an astronomer, used biology, _______, and geology to describe Pangaea and continental drift.
  15. 24. “We don’t really know the future, ______________,” Scotese told NASA.