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The seven continents, Africa, Asia, Europe, north and south America, and Antarctica. We all are familiar with these continents and where they are placed, but do we really know where they come from? Or perhaps, where they were before? It’s simple really, Pangaea, the great and almighty supercontinent. However, if Pangaea was so great, then why did it break apart? More suitably, why did it form in the first place? Well, let’s find out, why the great Pangaea formed, and how it drifted apart.
In the early years, long before humans roamed the earth, there was a protocontinent it’s name was Gondwana. And of course Gondwana wasn’t as huge or mass as Pangaea was, that’s because Gondwana wasn’t alone. In fact, there was another protocontinent known
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as Lurasia. So Gondwana and Laurasia were living peacefully on planet earth when all of a sudden the earth began to move and shake, the two continents were moving closer and closer together. Closer and closer, until BANG! Gondwana and Laurasia crashed together, forming what remains now as the Appalachians along eastern North America.
When the continents crashed into one another, without realizing it, formed the supercontinent known presently as Pangaea.
After the collision of Gondwana and Laurasia and the formation of Pangaea, all was calm, for at least 100 million years give or take. It was the colossal rents that began Pangea's breakup and the start of our world we know today.
The colossal rents are the precursor of two oceans, the commencement of the oceans we have come to know as the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Diverted back to the topic at hand here, the breakup of Pangaea has started as has its slow but sure dance of inches-per-year. This dance will make the shape of the world we all live in currently.
Far fetched you say? Well, my fine friend you would be correct on that part. the idea does seem a bit… obscure, however that does not mean that I have told lies, in fact, I believe you will start to realize the idea of a supercontinent to actually be real.
Let the evidence speak for itself, ancient plants and animals, or mountain belts, that are found on numerous continents. Such seeds as Glossopteris is an extinct plant that is found on many different and spread out continents, or perhaps coal deposits that are found in Pennsylvania are the same as those that are found in
Poland. There are also signs of paleontological evidence of a land bridge between Brazil and Africa. It was a man named Alfred Wegener that published his thesis of a supercontinents and protocontinents to the world and he was the first to do so. Alfred Wegener once said, and I quote, “the continents fit together like tongue and groove.” So, may I ask, do you understand me yet? Do you postulate that Pangaea is real? Or are you still skeptical? You are? What about all the paleontological evidence or the continents fitting together like tongue and groove? Oh well, if you still don’t fathom there is no way the continents could form such a great and massive continent, such as Pangaea, then I’m terribly sorry for wasting your time.
The area composed of the Gander, Nashoba, Avalon, and Meguma Terranes has been extensively studied for many years. However, it was only recently that the terranes were recognized as distinct geologic entities with unique tectonic histories thus there is still much debate regarding the tectonic model which brought these terranes together (Hon et al., 2007). This paper will address the geology of the peri-Gondwanan terranes and propose a potential tectonic model for the accretional orogenic events. It will also primarily focus on the juxtaposition between the Nashoba and Avalon Terranes.
15. The pictures above show how the continents on Earth’s surface have changed position over a very long period of time. What explains this change? (S6E5e, f)
There have been five mass extinctions over the last half-billion years while the sixth extinction is currently being examined by scientists around the world. Studies have shown that this is the most shocking and damaging event since the impact that caused the extinction of dinosaurs. This one is different from all others, because humans are the cause of this disaster to our current environment. If we don’t start to realize this issue and do something about it, eventually it will be too late to try to save the Earth and ourselves. I am going to analyze the sixth chapter, “The Sea Around Us,” for pathos, ethos, visual rhetoric and other related issues
To set the stage, we must go back 270 million years ago when a majority of the earth’s land masses were collected together in a single continent, a supercontinent, named Pangaea (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1). Historian Alfred Crosby explained that this collected all of earth’s land based biology into a single place, creating a single Darwinian “arena for competition” (Crosby, 1). Or in other words, one big evolutionary pot. Crosby also explains that 180 million years ago, Pangea split into two major land masses, what is now the Americas in the Western Hemisphere as one land mass and Euro-Asia and Africa as the second lass mass (Crosby, 1). What was once a single evolutionary pot, was now two, allowing for plant and animal life to take different evolutionary paths. These two worlds remained relatively separate from each other until the arrival of Christopher Columbus and other European explorers. That contact between the old world and the new world brought two distinct evolutionary arenas crashing into each other and returned a majority of the earth’s landmass into a single Darwinian pot, (Crosby, 1) This was Crosby’s re-knitting of the torn “seams of Pangaea.”
After the Laramide orogeny things were still happening, just as always with Earth. Something is always changing even if it is not detectable day by day. Due to the Farallon Plate subducting there was a suction like effect going on because of the water that was being taken in with it (Humphreys). This would cause the North American plate to become weak and unstable, because it was being hydrated. This eventually would result in large plateaus and large amounts of uplift (Humphreys). There are many things that have been going on through out this time period but it all turns around and creates and shapes the earth into what it is today as well as what it will be in the future.
Mother earth has gone through a lot of changes throughout its four and a half billion-year existence. Earth has seen many different climates and many different species. Because of these changes geologists have broken earths history into different time periods. One such time period was the Pennsylvanian time period. The Pennsylvanian time period is a subdivision of the Carboniferous period. The Pennsylvanian period saw the introduction of many different species that are still present today along with a very different climate and different geographical features than are present today.
During the Jurassic period, Pangea began to break up and by the time of the Late Cretaceous, ~94 Mya, the Atlantic Ocean began to open and Pangea continued to break apart. Due to this breakage of continents, there were extreme volcanic activity and much evidence can be seen of this all around the world today. In Anglesey, there are many igneous dykes and sills that have intruded older rocks that have been dated back to this time. This movement of continents continued into the Cenozoic era which is the current and most recent geological era consisting of the past 65 million years. It was during this time that Anglesey reached its current, present day
and history. Many of the animals were found on the four different mountains in the world and
...t of laurasia, just like most of the other plates. North America,Europe, and Green land all used to be connect because of Pangea ( as mentioned earlier). But when everything started to separate, first europe, then green land, and lastly the North American plate. After pangea was no more and the plates all started moving, the continents started going their own ways, there fore putting the continents where they are today.
"Oceans." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Detroit: Gale, 2014. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 8 May 2014.
"Ocean Events." GRACE â Uncovering the 2010-11 Decline in Global Mean Sea Level and Its Relation to ENSO (October, 2012). N.p., 8 Oct. 2012. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
Beneath the waves of the south pacific, lays a land mass known to scientist as Zealandia, the land of which makes up New Zealand and New Caledonia. Zealandia spans 5 million square kilometers and is very vast. Zealandia broke off from the super continent Gondawana about 100 million years ago and has been hidden under the ocean for years. Only about six percent of zealandia shows to the world and that is known as New Zealand and New Caledonia. So why is Zealandia not considered a continent if it is so big? Well because Zealandia is underwater, as I previously said there is only six percent of the total mass showing to the world. “If you could pull the plug on the world’s oceans, then Zealandia would probably long ago have been recognized as
The Continental Drift Hypothesis began to arise in the early 19th Century after geologists noticed similarities in the earth rock formation. Continents were also a geographical match; fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle.
Plate Tectonics shows us that the entire world is broken up into roughly twelve giant plates. The six major tectonic plates, as the sections are called, are the African, American, Antarctic, Eurasian, Indian and Pacific plates. Each one reaching thousands of miles long and wide. Each specific plate is made up of rock and are about forty miles thick. All of the plates fit together like a puzzle. Fitting close to each other which in turn makes the earth. When the plates reach up very high they become continents the ones that are very low form basins. These basins then become filled with water and become our oceans. The plates are on the earth’s mantle. The mantle is 2,000 miles thick. The t...
This is how it all started in the great age of maritime exploration and discovery which led to the initiation of all water routes between Europe and Asia, and the success which gave the Europeans supremacy over the northern hemisphere and an advantage to take settlement there. These events one after another and other events