Select all that apply. What evidence suggests the continents were once all together but then drifted apart?
Remains of tropical plants have been found in Antarctica
Matching jigsaw puzzle coastlines exist, particularly with the west coast of Africa and east coast of South America
Mountain ranges in North America match up with those along the European coastline.
Similar fossils of plants and animals are found on widely separated continents
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NEYT QUESTION

ANSWER:

b. Similar fossils of plants and animals are found on widely separated continents.

c. Remains of tropical plants found in Antarctica.

d. Matching jig-saw puzzle coastlines, particularly with the west coast of Africa and east coast of South America.

EXPLANATION:

  Continental drift is the earliest ways geologists believed continents moved gradually. The continental drift theory is connected to the scientist Alfred Wegener. He was certain that all continents of the Earth were once fragment of a mammoth, single land form known as 'Pangaea'. Wegener a trained astronomer, used botany, geology, and biology to define Pangaea and the continental drift.

 For instance, fossils of the primeval reptile Mesosaurus, a freshwater reptile,were only found in South America and Southern Africa and Mesosaurus being only one meter long would not have swam the Atlantic Ocean. The existence of Mesosaurus suggested a single habitat with several rivers and lakes. Wegener studied fossils of plants from the glacial Arctic Svalbard Archipelago, Norway.

 These plant fossils were not the sturdy specimens accustomed to subsist in the Arctic climate. These fossils were that of the tropical plants, which adapts to a more humid, much warmer environ. The existence of these fossils submits Svalbard once had a tropical climate.Lastly, Wegener studied the stratigraphy of mountain ranges and different rock.

 Africa's West-Coast and South America's East-Coast fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces, and Wegener learnt their rock layers fit very clearly. Wegener uncovered that the Eastern United States' Appalachian Mountains, for example, were geologically connected to Scotland's Caledonian Mountains.