2014年英语四级听力的练习：VOA慢速4.8(1)_大学英语听力

2014年英语四级听力的练习：VOA慢速4.8(1)

　　The city of Los Angeles is about 50 kilometers from the San Andreas Fault. Many smaller fault lines can be found throughout the Los Angeles area.

　　Scientists began making major discoveries about plate tectonics in the 20th century. One of those scientists was Alfred Wegener of Germany. One hundred years ago, he proposed that the continents had moved and were still moving.

　　Mr. Wegener said the idea came to him when he saw that the coasts of South America and Africa fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. He suspected that the two continents might have once been one, and then split apart.

　　He believed the continents had once been part of a huge area of land that he called pangaea. He said the huge continent had split more than 200 million years ago. And, he said the pieces were still floating apart.

　　Alfred Wegener investigated the idea that continents move. He noted that a line of mountains that appears from east to west in South Africa looks almost exactly the same as a line of mountains in Argentina -- on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. He found fossil remains of the same plant in parts of Africa, South America, India, Australia and even Antarctica.

　　Mr. Wegener said the mountains and fossils were evidence that all the land on Earth was united at some time in the distant past.

　　Mr. Wegener also noted differences between the continents and the ocean floor. He said the oceans were more than just low places that had filled with water. Even if the water was removed, he said, a person would still see differences between the continents and the ocean floor.