Evidence for continental drift

'Did the continents move for you?' In this ELI+ activity, pupils plot the movement of continents using apparent polar wandering curves.

By doing this Earthlearningidea pupils can:-
- appreciate that magnetic minerals become magnetised in the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field;
- by recording this remanent magnetisation, it is possible to construct apparent polar wandering curves for each continent;
- realise that the magnetic pole has not wandered but the apparent curve can be used to determine the position of the continents at the time of the formation of the rocks with the magnetic minerals;
- the apparent polar wandering curves give good evidence for continental drift.
Other related activities can be found on the website.