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List Of Paleocontinents
This is a list of paleocontinents, significant landmasses that have been proposed to exist in the geological past. The degree of certainty to which the identified landmasses can be regarded as independent entities reduces as geologists look further back in time. The list includes cratons, supercratons, microcontinents, continents and supercontinent In geology, a supercontinent is the assembly of most or all of Earth's continent, continental blocks or cratons to form a single large landmass. However, some geologists use a different definition, "a grouping of formerly dispersed continents", ...s. For the Archean to Paleoproterozoic cores of most of the continents see also list of shields and cratons. List of paleocontinents References {{Reflist * Palaeocontinent Paleogeography Paleocontinent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pangea Animation 03
Pangaea or Pangea ( ) was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from the earlier continental units of Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during the Carboniferous period approximately 335 million years ago, and began to break apart about 200 million years ago, at the end of the Triassic and beginning of the Jurassic. Pangaea was C-shaped, with the bulk of its mass stretching between Earth's northern and southern polar regions and surrounded by the superocean Panthalassa and the Paleo-Tethys and subsequent Tethys Oceans. Pangaea is the most recent supercontinent to have existed and was the first to be reconstructed by geologists. Origin of the concept The name "Pangaea" is derived from Ancient Greek ''pan'' (, "all, entire, whole") and ''Gaia'' or Gaea (, " Mother Earth, land"). The first to suggest that the continents were once joined and later separated may have been Abraham Ortelius in 1596. The concept that the conti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baltica
Baltica is a paleocontinent that formed in the Paleoproterozoic and now constitutes northwestern Eurasia, or Europe north of the Trans-European Suture Zone and west of the Ural Mountains. The thick core of Baltica, the East European Craton, is more than three billion years old and formed part of the Rodinia supercontinent at 1 . Tectonic history Baltica formed at 2.0–1.7 Ga by the collision of three Archaean-Proterozoic continental blocks: Fennoscandia (including the exposed Baltic Shield), Sarmatia ( Ukrainian Shield and Voronezh Massif), and Volgo-Uralia (covered by younger deposits). Sarmatia and Volgo-Uralia formed a proto-craton (sometimes called "Proto-Baltica") at c. 2.0 Ga which collided with Fennoscandia c. 1.8–1.7 Ga. The sutures between these three blocks were reactivated during the Mesoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic. Between 750 and 600 million years ago, Baltica and Laurentia rotated clockwise together and drifted away from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indian Subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. (subscription required) Although the terms "Indian subcontinent" and "South Asia" are often also used interchangeably to denote a wider region which includes, in addition, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka, the "Indian subcontinent" is more of a geophysical term, whereas "South Asia" is more geopolitical. "South Asia" frequently also includes Afghanistan, which is not considered part of the subcontinent even in extended usage.Jim Norwine & Alfonso González, ''The Third World: states of mind and being'', pages 209, Taylor & Francis, 1988, Quote: ""The term "South Asia" also signifies the Indian Subcontinent""Raj S. Bhopal, ''Ethnicity, race, and health in multicultural societies'', pages 33, Oxford University Press, 2007, ; Q ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gondwana
Gondwana ( ; ) was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. The remnants of Gondwana make up around two-thirds of today's continental area, including South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia (continent), Australia, Zealandia, Arabian Peninsula, Arabia, and the Indian subcontinent. Gondwana was formed by the Accretion (geology), accretion of several cratons (large stable blocks of the Earth's crust), beginning with the East African Orogeny, the collision of India and Geography of Madagascar, Madagascar with East Africa, and culminating in with the overlapping Brasiliano orogeny, Brasiliano and Kuunga orogeny, Kuunga orogenies, the collision of South America with Africa, and the addition of Australia and Antarctica, respectively. Eventually, Gondwana became the largest piece of continental crust of the Paleozoic Era, covering an area of some , about one-fifth of the Earth's surface. It fused with Laurasia during the Carboniferous to form Pan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Antarctic Shield
The East Antarctic Shield or Craton is a cratonic rock body that covers 10.2 million square kilometers or roughly 73% of the continent of Antarctica. The shield is almost entirely buried by the East Antarctic Ice Sheet that has an average thickness of 2200 meters but reaches up to 4700 meters in some locations. East Antarctica is separated from West Antarctica by the 100–300 kilometer wide Transantarctic Mountains, which span nearly 3,500 kilometers from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. The East Antarctic Shield is then divided into an extensive central craton ( Mawson craton) that occupies most of the continental interior and various other marginal cratons that are exposed along the coast. Background Over the past 1 billion years, East Antarctica has traveled from tropical (to subtropical) southerly latitudes to its current location with the entire East Antarctic Shield positioned south of the Antarctic Circle. Despite its relative lack of motion over the past 75 million y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Columbia (supercontinent)
Columbia, also known as Nuna or Hudsonland, is a hypothetical ancient supercontinent. It was first proposed by John J.W. Rogers and M. Santosh in 2002 and is thought to have existed approximately (Ma), in the Paleoproterozoic era. The assembly of the supercontinent was likely completed during global-scale collisional events from 2,100 to 1,800 Ma. Columbia consisted of proto-cratons that made up the cores of the continents of Laurentia, Baltica, Ukrainian Shield, Amazonian craton, Amazonian Craton, Australia (continent), Australia, and possibly Siberia (continent), Siberia, North China craton, North China, and Kalahari craton, Kalaharia as well. The evidence of Columbia's existence is provided by geology, geological and paleomagnetism, paleomagnetic data.; Size and location Columbia is estimated to have been approximately from north to south at its broadest part. The eastern coast of India was attached to western North America, with southern Australia (continent), Australia a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neotethys
The Tethys Ocean ( ; ), also called the Tethys Sea or the Neo-Tethys, was a prehistoric ocean during much of the Mesozoic Era and early-mid Cenozoic Era. It was the predecessor to the modern Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Eurasian inland marine basins (primarily represented today by the Black Sea and Caspian Sea). During the early Mesozoic, as Pangaea broke up, the Tethys Ocean was defined as the ocean located between the ancient continents of Gondwana and Laurasia. After the opening of the Indian and Atlantic oceans during the Cretaceous Period and the breakup of these continents over the same period, it came to be defined as the ocean bordered by the continents of Africa, Eurasia, India, and Australasia. During the early-mid Cenozoic, the Indian, African, Australian and Arabian plates moved north and collided with the Eurasian plate, which created new borders to the ocean, a land barrier to the flow of currents between the Indian and Mediterranean basins, and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cimmeria (continent)
Cimmeria ( ) was an ancient continent, or, rather, a string of continental fragment, microcontinents or terranes, that rifted from Gondwana in the Southern Hemisphere and was accreted to Eurasia in the Northern Hemisphere. It consisted of parts of present-day Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tibet, China, Myanmar, Thailand, and Malaysia. Cimmeria rifted from the Gondwanan shores of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean during the Early Permian and as the Tethys Ocean, Neo-Tethys Ocean opened behind it, during the Permian, the Paleo-Tethys closed in front of it. Because the different chunks of Cimmeria drifted northward at different rates, a Meso-Tethys Ocean formed between the different fragments during the Cisuralian. Cimmeria rifted off Gondwana from east to west, from Australia to the eastern Mediterranean. It stretched across several latitudes and spanned a wide range of climatic zones. History of the concept First concepts A "large, ancient Mediterranean Sea" was first proposed by Au ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cathaysia
Cathaysia was a microcontinent or a group of terranes that rifted off Gondwana during the Late Paleozoic. They mostly correspond to the modern territory of China, historically referred to in Europe as Cathay, which was split into the North China and South China blocks. Terminology The terms "Cathaysia", "Cathaysialand" and "Cathaysia Terrane" have been used by various authors for different continental blocks or terranes and assemblages thereof. During the Devonian, the South China and Indochina continents had separated from Gondwana and they collided during the Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ... to finally form a superterrane in the Permian. "Cathaysia" has been used for some or all of the constellations involved in this tectonic journey. For exampl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
