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

It combines pan, 'all, entire', with Gaia, the Earth or Mother Earth.

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

Wegener's 1915 book expanding the theory was titled, in English, what?

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

In it he called the single landmass the Urkontinent; the name Pangaea appears just once in the 1920 edition.

Q 04/05

Pangaea finished assembling from Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during which geological period?

A) Carboniferous

B) Devonian

C) Cretaceous

D) Cambrian

Answer · why

A) Carboniferous

That was about 335 million years ago; it began to break apart around 200 million years ago at the end of the Triassic.

Q 05/05

What letter shape did Pangaea resemble?

A) T

B) C

C) O

D) S

Answer · why

B) C

The Tethys Ocean sat inside the curve, and a single vast superocean surrounded the rest.

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