Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
This is a list of continental landmasses, continents, and continental subregions by population. For statistical convenience, the population of continental landmasses also include the population of their associated islands .
Continents are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria. A continent could be a single landmass or a part of a very large landmass, as in the case of Asia or Europe. Due to this, the number of continents varies; up to seven or as few as four geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents.
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 supercontinents. For the Archean to Paleoproterozoic cores of most of the continents see also list of shields and cratons.
"Two hundred million years ago, our planet looked very different from what it does today. It was entirely covered by sea, which surrounded one single supercontinent we call Pangaea. And then, Pangaea began to break up. Life was cast adrift on fragments of land, and these fragments eventually became our seven continents.
Rise of the Continents is a British documentary television series that premiered on BBC Two on 9 June 2013. The four-part series is presented by geologist Iain Stewart . The series hypothesizes how 250 million years in the future, all of the continents will collide together once more, forming a new Pangea , with Eurasia right at its heart.
However, as the change of sound from ph to f in Greek is datable to about the 10th century, it is unlikely this is the origin. [citation needed] Latin aprica "sunny". Another suggestion is that the name comes from the Ancient Egyptian word afruika - which means 'turning towards the ka' or 'turning towards the birthplace' or 'motherland' of ...
The outlines of the modern continents and other landmasses are indicated on this map. At the end of the Proterozoic, the supercontinent Pannotia had broken apart into the smaller continents Laurentia, Baltica, Siberia and Gondwana. [153] During periods when continents move apart, more oceanic crust is formed by volcanic activity.
In the modern day, there are seven continents. However, there have been more continents throughout history. Vaalbara was the first supercontinent. [2] Europe is the newest continent. [3] Geologists have predicted that certain continents will appear, these being Pangaea Proxima, Novopangaea, Aurica, and Amasia.