The coastline of eastern South America and West Africa could fit together like pieces in a jigsaw. The match was noticed in the 17th century. However, it was not until 1912 that Alfred Wagener proposed that all the land masses of the world had originally formed one super continent, which he called Pangaea. This could not be explained until the early 1960, when scientist discovered that the plates of the earth’s lithosphere were moving, floating on the more mobile rock below. As well as the matching coastlines, there is other evidence that there was one a single contain. There are remains o an ancient mountain belt, between 350 and 470 million years old, which are now spattered by the Atlantic Ocean. These mountains were created by a continuous belt geological activity.

Te present distribution of the continents has taken place in the last 65 million years. Today, the drift still continues. Th Atlantic Ocean is getting wider by several centimeters a year, the Pacific Ocean is getting smaller, and the red sea is part of a crack in the crust that will widen to produce a new ocean millions of years in the future.

When an earthquake takes places under the sea bed, it may produce a wave in the sea in the open ocean the wave may hardly be noticed. But if it reaches shallow water near a coast, the wave may rise to heights of 30 m or more. These giant waves are called tsunamis. The highest tsunami ever recorded hit the island of Ishigaki to the west of Taiwan in April 1771. It is thought to have reached height of 85 m.

A Tornado is a twisting funnel, a few hundred meters across, in which wind speeds can reach 350 km/ h. tornadoes move in a straight line and can cause terrible destruction. These pressure inside is so low that it can cause nearby buildings to explode.

A hurricane is a tropical storm, usually bout 650 km cross. It brings heavy rain and winds of speeds up to 20 km/h. in the northwest pacific they are called typhoons, and those in the Indian Ocean and north of Australia are called cyclone.