Continental Drift [Flip Book]

Watch the planet’s tectonic plates RIP and CRUNCH before your very eyes!

This incredible example of information visualization was first created by Christopher R. Scotese in 1973, during his time as a student in the University of Chicago’s Department of Geophysical Sciences. This is the second edition (of at least seven), copyrighted and published in 1979.

The cleverly designed flip book uses a series of 39 maps to illustrate the theory of continental drift and plate tectonics. According to the second page,

“By ‘flipping’ through the pages of this little booklet, one can view the movements of the continents during the last 540 million years. These maps show the sequence of continental collisions that resulted in the formation of the supercontinent, Pangea, at the end of the Paleozoic. During the Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras, the continents drifted apart, forming the modern ocean basins.”

Source.