Q 01/05

The name Pangaea comes from ancient words meaning what?

A) One world

B) Old land

C) Great mother

D) All earth

Answer · why

D) All earth

All earth, from pan and gaia, yet Pangaea never held quite all the land: an ocean kept North and South China apart from it.

Q 02/05

Which German scientist put forward the continental drift hypothesis in 1912?

A) Eduard Suess

B) Alfred Wegener

C) Arthur Holmes

D) Harry Hess

Answer · why

B) Alfred Wegener

He was primarily a meteorologist and polar researcher; mainstream geology did not accept his idea until the 1960s.

Q 03/05

What is the English title of Wegener's 1915 book setting out his drift theory?

A) The Face of the Earth

B) The Origin of Continents and Oceans

C) Our Wandering Continents

D) Principles of Physical Geology

Answer · why

B) The Origin of Continents and Oceans

The Origin of Continents and Oceans took shape while Wegener was recovering from wounds he suffered as a German soldier early in the First World War.

Q 04/05

In which geological period did Gondwana collide with Euramerica to form most of Pangaea?

A) Carboniferous

B) Silurian

C) Cretaceous

D) Cambrian

Answer · why

A) Carboniferous

Carboniferous air was unusually rich in oxygen, which may explain the period's giant insects, among them dragonfly-like fliers with wingspans of aroun...

Q 05/05

What letter shape did Pangaea resemble?

A) T

B) C

C) O

D) S

Answer · why

B) C

C, with warm Tethys seas held in its curve, and those seas carried humid tropical air and rain downwind onto the land.