Plate Tectonics: The Moving Map
The continents are puzzle pieces that have been drifting apart for 200 million years.
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What students do
Watch Pangaea break apart over 250 million years using the time slider. The fossil bands show identical species on coasts now separated by oceans. The seafloor age stripes reveal youngest rock at the mid-ocean ridge and oldest rock at the continental edges, explaining how new crust forms and plates spread. The coastlines of South America and Africa still fit together like pieces of a puzzle, evidence they were once joined and have been drifting slowly apart.
Standards alignment
Analyze and interpret data on the distribution of fossils and rocks, continental shapes, and seafloor structures to provide evidence of the past plate motions.