This investigation will help you to:

1. Understand that evidence is data used to support an idea.
2. Use observations to form a hypothesis about Earth's past.
3. Test and revise your hypothesis, using observations as evidence.
4. Examine one kind of long-term change in the geosphere.

Paleomap Project

Navigate through this site to find animations, diagrams, resources, teaching materials, and background information. The home page describes how the site is organized and how to find what you want. In particular, the site includes maps and animations (including the breakup of Pangea and the way the continents will look in the future) of the changing positions and shapes of the continents over geologic time.

On the Move - Continental Drift and Plate Tectonics
NASA

This site includes some brief background details on how the theory of continental drift developed and how NASA monitors and track continental drift now. For fun, try out the mini-quiz or do the word search (which requires Java).

ODSN Plate Tectonic Reconstruction Service

This site allows you to select a time between 150 million years before present and today and then the program maps what the world looked like at the time you select.

Historical Perspective
USGS

Learn a little more about the history continental drift and plate tectonics.

Trans-Hudsonian Suture--Collision of Superior with Hearne/Wyoming Province

Read more about another example of a suture zone that stretches from the Hudson Bay to Nebraska.

The Breakup of Pangea: The North America-Africa Connection
Rutgers University

A discussion about how we know Pangea once existed. Includes diagrams and animations.

The Breakup of Pangea
USGS