The Glossopteris flora
A tongue-shaped leaf found on five continents becomes the first hard evidence for continental drift.
- When
- Known to
- ± 10 million years
- Era
- Permian, Paleozoic
Glossopteris forests cover the cool temperate southern half of Pangaea. Their fossils turn up in India, South America, Africa, Australia and Antarctica — distributions impossible unless those landmasses were once joined. Wegener used exactly this pattern to argue for continental drift, and Scott's doomed Antarctic party was found with Glossopteris specimens they had hauled to the end.