https://padlet.com/abuck9/11irhe06i9tw Supplemental Information to what you read in the McGraw Hill Connect Ed Textbook. en-us 2018-03-08 01:18:16 UTC 2018-03-08 01:58:26 UTC hello@padlet.com abuck9 https://padlet.com/abuck9/11irhe06i9tw/wish/239467555 Hundreds of millions of years ago, an ice sheet, or glacier, covered many of the southern continents.   Glaciers are really heavy.  As the huge glacier moved slowly across the Earth’s surface, it scraped and scratched rocks in South America, India, Africa, and Australia.  The marks are still visible today.  The scrapes and scratches in all of those places go in the same direction and have the same depth and width; if you were to put South America and Africa together, the scrapes would line up perfectly. 

Click here for more images of Glacial Scrapes.

]]> 2018-03-08 01:18:24 UTC https://padlet.com/abuck9/11irhe06i9tw/wish/239467555 abuck9 https://padlet.com/abuck9/11irhe06i9tw/wish/239468144 Ancient fossils provided other clues.  Mesosaurus lived about 280 million years ago. It probably looked like a miniature alligator and inhabited rivers and inland seas. Though small - these reptile ancestors measured about 3 feet (1 meter) long - they have a big story to tell.  When identical Mesosaurus fossils turned up in both South America and South Africa, it was another puzzle for geologists.  Did they swim back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean? Probably not. They were freshwater animals and certainly not long-distance swimmers.   But what if before these creatures went extinct, South America was closer to Africa, even a single continent, which then split up? When South America drifted away, it would have taken some Mesosaurus fossils with it.

Click here for more information about fossil evidence for plate tectonics.]]> 2018-03-08 01:20:53 UTC https://padlet.com/abuck9/11irhe06i9tw/wish/239468144 abuck9 https://padlet.com/abuck9/11irhe06i9tw/wish/239468945 We have put satellites out in space.  They orbit around the earth and take pictures of the earth.  Photos are frequently taken of the continents.  When scientists look at these pictures, they notice that the continents move approximately 2 cm each year.  The continents are moving right now.  However, they are moving so slowly that we can’t notice the movement.

Click here for more information about GPS tracking plate movement.
Click here for the History of Satellites.]]> 2018-03-08 01:24:15 UTC https://padlet.com/abuck9/11irhe06i9tw/wish/239468945