Single Boulder May Prove N. American and Antartica Were Connected

July 21st, 2008

Ever since we were students in elementary school science classes worrying more about acne cream than science, we have been aware that continents have been drifting away from each other for hundreds of millions of years. Also, we all know of the fact that we may have once been connected to every other continent in one giant land mass.

A lone granite boulder found against all odds high atop a glacier in Antarctica may provide additional key evidence to support a theory that parts of the southernmost continent once were connected to North America hundreds of millions of years ago.

The team’s find, they argue, provides physical evidence that confirms the so-called southwestern United States and East Antarctica (SWEAT) hypothesis.

“What this paper does is say that we have three main new lines of evidence that basically confirm the SWEAT idea,” said John Goodge, an NSF-funded researcher with the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.