Where did the change begin?
Labs / Geography
Reassemble Pangaea
Today's continents were once locked together in a single supercontinent. Grab a plate to slide it, drag its knob to spin it, and tuck the coastlines together until the fossil and mountain belts run unbroken across the seams. Watch the fit score climb, or hit Play drift to let 250 million years replay.
Labs / Geography / Reassemble Pangaea
Reassemble Pangaea
Today's continents were once locked together in a single supercontinent. Grab a plate to slide it, drag its knob to spin it, and tuck the coastlines together until the fossil and mountain belts run unbroken across the seams. Watch the fit score climb, or hit Play drift to let 250 million years replay.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Geography explains how places, people, and Earth systems affect one another. This model lets you change one factor and watch its effects spread across space.
Explore
Try the model
Fit 0%Piece —250 Ma
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- Turn on Fossils. Why would the same land reptile turn up on the facing coasts of two continents an ocean apart?
- South America and Africa were Wegener's first clue. How snugly do their coastlines actually interlock?
- Switch on Glacial markers. What does an ancient ice sheet spread across India and Australia say about where they used to sit?
- With Mountains on, can you line the chain across North America and Eurasia into one continuous range?
- Press Play drift. Which continent has to travel the farthest to reach where it sits today?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Connect the pattern to place: identify where the change begins, where its effects appear, and which process links those locations.
Check
Before you leave
What spatial pattern appeared?
Which process connects the cause and effect?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.