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Animated Life: Pangea

7 minutes 36 seconds

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Illustration of a man sitting at a desk, looking off into the distance at nothing. Caption: Maybe the continents drifted apart.

This animated short tells the story of Alfred Wegener, a German astronomer and atmospheric scientist, who came up with the idea that continents once formed a single landmass and had drifted apart. Continental drift explained why continents' shapes fit together like pieces of a puzzle and why distant continents had the same fossils. During Wegener’s time, the idea was met with hostility but after his death a large body of evidence showed that continents do indeed move. Today the theory of plate tectonics is a fundamental principle in geology.

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Runtime: 7 minutes 36 seconds

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