The drifting of tectonic plates is an on-going process that has changed the configuration of the continents since their formation in Archean time. This hypothesis first proposed in 1912 by Alfred Wegener, a German Meteorologist, was not widely accepted until after 1960.
One of the ways to call this process is called external fertilization because the fertilization of egg and sperm take place OUTSIDE of the female body rather than inside.
