Mariel L.
Perete G10 Panganiban SCIENCE 10 July 26, 2016
Activity 4
DRIFTED SUPERCONTINENT
Objective:
Tell the possible direction of motion of the continents as they
drifted away.
Draw fossils of plants and animals as evidences found in the
present continents that will help solve the puzzle in the fitting
of the drifted continents.
Reconstruct and describe Pangaea.
Predict what will happen to the world as the continents
continuously move.
Materials:
Photocopy of the seven continents
World map
Pair of scissors
Procedure:
1. Cut carefully the traces of the seven continents. Warning: Be
careful in using the scissors.
2. Sketch the dominant species of plants and animals found in the
continents before and after drifting away from each other.
3. Put the cut outs together.
Q13. What do the Glossopteris fossils tell us about the
early positions of the continents?
Q14. If Glossopteris were found in Antarctica, what was the
climate of this continent before?
Q15.If the climate and the position of a place are relative
to each other, where then was the initial location of
Antarctica 250 million years ago?
Q16. What does the presence of Mesosaurus fossils tell about
the initial location and positioning of South America,
Africa, and Antarctica?
4. Make sure that you put fitting edges of the continents side by
side to form the supercontinent Pangaea.
Q17. What clues are useful in reconstructing Pangaea?
Q18. Which continents do you think were neighbors before?
Q19. Is there a possibility that the current location of a
continent would be different 100 years from now?
Q20. Where do you think as the Philippines located during
the time that the Pangaea existed? Research on how the
Philippine island emerged.
5. Compare Pangaea with the world map.
6. Now move one continent relative to its current location.
Observe carefully the direction of tis motion as it assumes its
current location and position. Record your observation.
7. Do the same procedure to the other continents. Record your
observations.
Q21. If the continents will continue to move, try to predict
the Philippines location 100 million years from now.
According to Philippine folklore, the country came out to be made of
7,107 islands (in low tide) due to a conjugal fight between two giants from
Ilocos, named Angalo and Angarab. Legends are part of our culture, however
it is best to have our next generation know the scientific reason behind it
so they will be more intellectually involved on how our islands came about.
One would be surprised that a nearby island may be a distant neighbor
millions of years ago.
Millions of years ago, the world is only made up of one super
continent called Pangaea. And due to continental drift, Pangaea was
separated to the modern day 7 continents.
The first Philippine island showed up about 60 million years ago. It
is the island of Mindoro and Palawan which is very near the island of
present-day Taiwan.
Due to geological and plate tectonic evolution, primarily due to the
Pacific plate and Australian plate moving inward to the Asian plate; the
island of Luzon and Mindanao started to show up. It was only about 30
million years ago when the Indian plate has started to collide with the
Asian plate, then, created a tear to which the now West Philippine Sea
developed and pushing the solitary Mindoro and Palawan Island closer to the
newly developed Luzon and Mindanao islands. The Pacific, Australian and
Indian plate continued to push inward to Asia thus creating 7, 107 islands
of the now, Philippines.
The Pacific plate continues to move westward creating a rise of under
ocean surface east of Dinapigue, Isabela. In a million years, this rise
will add up to the territory of the Philippines. An island as big as
Luzon... the benham rise.
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