FOSSILISED LEAVES OF GLOSSOPTERIS - 260 million years old - Australia
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260 million year old fossils that provided key evidence for continental drift
Dunedoo, New South Wales, Australia
The movement of continents across the Earth’s surface is now an accepted fact but when the theory of continental drift was put forward by Alfred Wegener in 1912 it was widely ridiculed.
One of Wegener’s main pieces of evidence in support of the theory was the fact that fossil leaves of the extinct tree Glossopteris from the Permian period are found in South America, Africa, Australia and India but seeds of this tree could not have travelled over large expanses of water. He therefore concluded that these continents must have been joined together in a ‘supercontinent’ known as Gondwanaland.
Wegener’s ideas were not finally accepted until the discovery of plate tectonics in the 1960s.
260 million year old fossils that provided key evidence for continental drift
Dunedoo, New South Wales, Australia
The movement of continents across the Earth’s surface is now an accepted fact but when the theory of continental drift was put forward by Alfred Wegener in 1912 it was widely ridiculed.
One of Wegener’s main pieces of evidence in support of the theory was the fact that fossil leaves of the extinct tree Glossopteris from the Permian period are found in South America, Africa, Australia and India but seeds of this tree could not have travelled over large expanses of water. He therefore concluded that these continents must have been joined together in a ‘supercontinent’ known as Gondwanaland.
Wegener’s ideas were not finally accepted until the discovery of plate tectonics in the 1960s.
Presented in a lidded gift box.
Click on a picture for a larger image
Size: 8 x 5 x 2 centimetres
Weight: 130 grams
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