Bob Brussack's List: Middle School Homeschool Resources

Though they are separated by an ocean, Africa’s Anti-Atlas Mountains and North America’s Appalachian Mountains are linked in time. Both appear to have gotten their start hundreds of millions of years ago, before the end of the geologic era known as the Paleozoic (roughly 540-250 million years ago.) During the Paleozoic, plate tectonics compressed all the Earth’s continents into a single massive “supercontinent” called Pangaea, which stretched from pole to pole. During the formation of Pangaea, what is now North America crashed into what is now Africa several times. As the two continents were crushed together, the Appalachians and the Anti-Atlas were built. Through the following era, the Mesozoic (roughly 250-65 million years ago), the Atlantic Ocean opened between the two continents, separating the mountains.