BIODIVERSITY SCBT 31125

Lecture 2

Continental drift (part 1) and

Geologic time line (part 2)

By Shawn K. Nithianantham
 At the end of this topic, you should
be able to:
1. Explain the theory of continental drift (part 1)
2. List the evidences of plate tectonics (part 1)
3. Understand the geologic time line (part 2)
4. Compare the eras and periods and its distinctive
character in terms of evolution (part 2)
The Pangaea Theory
• 250 million years ago all
of the land masses of the
Earth were joined
together in one SUPER-
CONTINENT called
Pangaea.
• Later, it splits and these
split-up pieces drifted
slowly apart and became
the way they are today.
• Even until now, the
shape of the Earth
surface is still changing,
and it will be forever, as
long as the mantle
underneath the Earth's
crust gets heated and
convection currents in the
magma keeps dragging
the plates.
 • Somewhere around 180
million years ago Pangaea
split in to two smaller
supercontinents.
• The Northern landmass
contained North America Asia
and Europe and was called
Laurasia.
• The name combines the
names of Laurentia, the name
given to the North American
craton, and Eurasia.
• The Southern landmass,
Gondwanaland, consisted of
Africa, South America,
Antarctica, Arabia and India.
• The continent of Gondwana
was named by Austrian
scientist, Eduard Suess, after
the Gondwana region of
central northern India (from
Sanskrit gondavana "forest
of the Gonds"), from which
The Gondi (Gōndi) or Gond people are the Gondwana sedimentary
Adivasi people of central India, spread over sequences (Permian-Triassic)
many of its states. are also described.
 Gondwanan distribution
• adjective Gondwanan is in common use in
biogeography when referring to patterns of
distribution of living organisms, typically when
the organisms are restricted to two or more of
the now-discontinuous regions that were once
part of Gondwana, including the Antarctic flora.
• For example, the Proteaceae, a family of plants
that is known only from southern South America,
South Africa, and Australia are considered to
have a "Gondwanan distribution". This pattern is
often considered to indicate an archaic, or relict,
lineage.
• This illustration
shows the breakup
of the super
continent Pangaea
225–200 million
years ago,
according to
Wegener's theory
of continental drift.
• This theory
explains not only
fossils in
Antarctica, but also
the current shape
of the continents.
• 150 million years ago
a split in the Earth’s
crust formed between
modern-day Africa and
South America. The
split in the crust
extruded massive
amounts of lava. It was
called the Triple
Junction.
• Hundreds of square
miles of lava in some
places thousands of
feet deep covered
parts of Africa and
South America.
• Today this lava can be
found as basalt at
locations in Argentina
and Namibia.
• Iguazu Falls, Argentina • Namibia
 Evidence of plate tectonics
• The Pangaea theory
was treated with
much skepticism
when it was first
raised. But since
then, there have been
much evidence to
support this theory.

Alfred Lothar Wegener

 1. Continental Coastlines Appearing To Fit Together

• One prominent example of • This helps to prove that these

continental coastline fitting continents were once joined
together is to fit the coastline of together as one whole
the West Coast of Africa with Pangaea and broke away to
the coastline East Coast of form these two land masses
South America. It can be seen now.
that they fit well, like pieces of a
jigsaw puzzle.
 2. Fossil Distribution
• Matching fossil of
reptiles have been
found in Africa and
South America, further
proving that these two
continents were
actually so close to
each other or even
joined, that reptiles
could travel to and fro
between them easily.
Identical fossil ferns
have also been found
in all southern
continents, and also
embedded in the same
layer sequence,
suggesting the
proximity the southern
continents were in
millions of years ago
that allowed the
growing of these ferns
• Scientists in Antarctica have found fossils of in the same climate
tropical plants near the frozen South Pole. and soil.
Mesosaurus Fossil
Cynognathus Skull Fossil
Lystrosaurus Skull Fossil

Lystrosaurus
 Glossopteris Tree
Glossopteris Leaf Fossils Lystrosaurus and Glossopteris
3. Distinctive Rock Strata (Matching Rock Types)

• Geologists have
discovered that the
geological structures of
the rocks in South West
Africa and South East
Brazil were distinctively
identical, and the age of
the rocks at these two
areas was the same. This
distinctive rock strata
shared by the two land
masses suggests that
these two areas were
once joined together.
4. Coal Distribution

• Coal can be found

underneath the cold and
dry Antarctic ice cap,
though coal can only
form in warm and wet
conditions. This could
mean that Antarctica
was once together with
the other continents as
part of the Pangaea, and
was once in a warm and
humid region. Coal was
formed before Antarctica
drifted away to its
present cold and dry
climate. That is why the
coal can be found buried
under the thick layer of
ice and snow.
 Original Pangaean Coal
Deposits in the "Gray
Band"

Take note of the locations of

"tropical" coal deposits in the
map above.
 5. Distribution of Glacial Deposits
• The widespread distribution of Permo-
Carboniferous glacial sediments in
South America, Africa, Madagascar,
Arabia, India, Antarctica and Australia
was one of the major pieces of evidence
for the theory of continental drift, and led
ultimately to the concept of a super-
continent, Pangaea.
• Glacial activity spanned virtually the
whole of Carboniferous and Early
Permian time (A.G. Smith, 1997).
• Toward the end of the Carboniferous,
around 290 million years ago,
Gondwana, the southern part of
Pangaea, was located near the south
pole.
• Glacial centres expanded across the
continents, producing glacial tillites and
striations in pre-existing rocks.
• The Permo-Carboniferous ice sheet
was so extensive that it would occupy a
circle spanning 50 degrees of latitude
centered on the pole (A.G. Smith, 1997).

•Take note of glacial zones during

Pangaea and then at present.
 END
THE END
of part
of part 11
Beginning of
part 2
 Geologic Time Line
• The purpose of this geologic time line is
• To help you easily find in-depth information on
eons, eras, and periods of earth’s history.
• It is convenient and useful to see the time
periods all laid out in chart form.
• As a reference tool, you can easily note the
sequence of the various divisions and the length
of each unit of time.
• Just like the layers of the earth, the top divisions
of the chart represent the most recent time.
• Moving down the chart, you go further and
further back in time.
 Geologic Time Line
• The names of each Eon, Era or Period are
linked to pages that contain information on the
geology, biology, and climate of that particular
time.
• Note: At present, information about individual
epochs can be found within their respective
periods.
– Hadean- volcanoes, space, physics, chemistry
– Archaean-Setting the stage for life
– Proterozoic- chemistry, oxygen, and the beginnings of life
– Paleozoic-"Old Life"
– Mesozoic-"Middle Life"
– Cenozoic-"New Life"
 Eon Era Period Epoch Years Age of Significant Events
Ago

Holocene 0-11,000 Human

Quaternary Civilization

Cenozoic Pleistocene 11,000-2 Mammals Ice Age

million

2-66 Extinction of Dinosaurs

Tertiary million

66-144 Flowering Plants

Cretaceous million

144-208 Reptiles Birds and Mammals

Mesozoic Jurassic million

208-245 Dinosaurs
Phanerozoic
Triassic million

245-286 Extinction of Trilobites

Permian million
Amphibians
286-320 First Reptiles and Large Primitive
Carboniferous million Trees

260-408 First Amphibians

Devonian million
Fishes
Paleozoic
408-438 First Land Plant Fossils
Silurian million

Ordovician 438-505 First Fish

million
Invertebrates
Cambrian 505-570 First Shells-Trilobites Dominate
million

Proterozoic 570 million- First Multi-celled Organisms

2.5 billion

Archean 2.5- 3.8 First One-celled Organisms

Also known as the Precambrian
billion

Hadean 3.8-4.6 Approximate age of oldest known

billion rocks
 1. Hadean Eon- Time And The Formation of The Earth
4.5 to 3.8 Billion Years Ago
• The Hadean period is represented by the first hour
and fifty minutes of the Clock. The nature of the
Hadean has generally been believed to be a turbulent
time of extreme heat and volatile gravitational
collapse.
• Scientists have generally thought that during the
Hadean period the solar system was forming out of a
spinning cloud of dust and gases called an accretion
disk. At the center of the cloud, heavier particles drew
together through gravitational force until nuclear
fusion set it ablaze in light and heat. This, of course,
was the birth of our sun.
• But the solar particles were not the only particles •Photo:NASA
present in the accretion disk. Other particles were
lumping together to form microplanets (similar to
modern asteroids), larger planetesimals, and the
planets of our solar system.
• Scientists also believe that the Earth and other
planets would have been molten at this stage of
development. As the Earth cooled, the heavier molten
iron sank into the core, while lighter rock rose to the
surface, cooled and became the crust. The oldest
known Earth rocks to date are approximately 3.8
billion years old. Meteorites and lunar rocks have
been found to be approximately 4.5 billion years old.
With the formation of solid rock, Earth’s geological
history began.
 2. The Archaean Eon - A Cooling Crust
3.8 to 2.5 Billion Years Ago
• The Archaean Eon was a time of continent-
building and the first stages of early life. In fact,
70% of our continental land masses are formed
around cores of rock, or shields, that date from this
period.
Various conditions that may have been in existence
during this time period.
• First, the atmosphere have had no oxygen. Instead,
it would have been filled with:
– hydrogen
– methane
– ammonia

• This kind of atmosphere is called a reducing

atmosphere. It is just the kind of atmosphere that
could support the organic chemistry for first life. In
fact, there is fossil evidence of ancient bacteria.

• One type of bacteria present then were the

cyanobacteria or blue-green algaes.

• These bacteria appear to have had a very strong

cell-wall and the ability to form layers in the ancient
sediments.

• The formations are called stromatolites. They can

be found in Archaean rock formations of Western
Australia.
 The Archaean Eon - A Cooling Crust
3.8 to 2.5 Billion Years Ago
• The forming of the continents during the
Archaean probably began as lava flow under
the ancient oceans. The youngest of the
Archaean rock layers look like giant pillows of
lava and resemble underwater lava flows from
modern times.

• Based on this resemblance, it seems likely

that most of the continents were covered by
water during the Archaean time, roughly 3
billion to 2.5 billion years ago.

• Before life forms could evolve, there had to

have been chemical transformations to set the
stage. The now-famous experiment performed Pillow Lava
by Miller and Urey in 1953 showed how an
atmosphere of:
– methane
– carbon dioxide
– Hydrogen

• (a reducing atmosphere) exposed to heat and

electrical charges would have produced
organic molecules such as amino acids and
simple sugars.
 3. The Proterozoic Eon - Life Gets More Complex
2.5 Billion To 543 Million Years Ago

• At the center of Rodinia is a baby

• The Proterozoic Eon would have been North America called Laurentia. Its
an exciting time to be an observer of western border lies next to the infants
life development on planet Earth. The that would grow into Australia and
fiery formation processes of the Antarctica , while the eastern coast is
Hadean and the undersea continent- next to western Africa.
building of the Archaen, now were • The early life that formed in the
replaced by the process of tectonics. Archaean, especially the autotrophs:
• The plates rested on a very different cyanobacteria and early plants,
magma than our modern-day plates. developed into a new type of cell as a
The plates themselves were younger consequence of the oxygen-rich
and thinner and the magma was atmosphere they had created. This cell
hotter. This would have made the was the eukaryote, a cell that contains
magma more liquid than today, so a nucleus. With the onset of the
likely the continental movement would eukaryote, living organisms were able
have been faster, with collisions and to join together into groups of
fractures more frequent. A single eukaryotic cells. Toward the end of the
super-continent formed. Today it is Proterozoic, multi-cellular algae and
called Rodinia. the first multi-celled animals were the
result.
 4. The Phenerozoic Eon - Visible Life on earth
543 Million Years Ago To Present

• Is the current eon in the

geologic timescale, and
subdivided into 3 eras
namely
▪ Paleozoic (543 - 251
Mya),
▪ Mesozoic (251 - 65 Mya)
and
▪ Cenozoic (65 – Present).
• This is the time during
which abundant animal
life has existed
THANK YOU