Continental Drift: The idea that continents, particulary South America and Africa, fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle originated with the development of reasonably accurate world maps. Pangaea is the suggested that a single supercontinent existed at one point. Wegener's hypothesis came from the remarkable similarities of the continental margins on the opposite sides of the Atlanic he thought the idea of a modile earth was imporbable. But then they found identical fossil organisms were known from the rocks in both south America and Africa that he began to seriously pursue this idea. Wegener also cited the distribution odf the fossil fern Glossopteris as evidence for the existence of pangaea. This plant, identified by its large seeds that were not easily distributed by was known to be widely disspread among Africa, Australia, India, South America during the late Paleozoicera. Wegener's proposal did not attact much open criticism until the 1924 when his book was tranlated into english, french, spanish, and russian.
