One Response to “How might scientists determine when North America seperated from Eurasia during the breakup of Pangaea?Moreinf”

1. 

   spritzer93@sbcglobal.net said on February 7th, 2010 at 5:33 am

   Assume that the rate at which N. America and Eurasia are drifting apart has and will remain constant.

   To determine when the continents separated you’d:

   current distance between continents / rate of drift = time (ago)

   So for instance (made up numbers):

   (2000 miles) / (1 mile/year) = 2000 years

   REMEMBER…that’s 2000 years ago. You have to subtract the number of years from the current year to get the specific point in time.
   References :

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