continental drift: Quick Facts

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evidence of continental drift

Map projection depicting Earth as it may appear 250 million years in the future, with all present-day continents merged into a single supercontinent labeled Pangea Proxima. The map shows the positions of North America, South America, Africa, Eurasia, Australia, and Antarctica clustered together, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, with mountains, land, shallow seas, and deep ocean basins indicated by different colors. An inset at lower right shows current continental positions for comparison.

Map depicting the ancient supercontinent Gondwana, with colored bands showing the overlapping geographic home ranges of four prehistoric species-Cynognathus, Lystrosaurus, Glossopteris, and Mesosaurus-extending across present-day South America, Africa, India, Antarctica, and Australia.

The continents and oceans of the Earth in the present-day QuaternaryClick the button to view an animation of continental movements through all of geologic time.

plate tectonics

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Piecing together the puzzle of continental drift

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Topics

paleocontinent convection current plate tectonics diastrophism subsidence uplift earthquake supercontinent fault isostasy continent How are mountains formed?volcanism How do earthquakes occur?

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