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Gondwana (/ ɡ ɒ n d ˈ w ɑː n ə /) [1] 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, Zealandia, Arabia, and the Indian Subcontinent.
The geology of New Zealand is noted for its volcanic activity, earthquakes and geothermal areas because of its position on the boundary of the Australian Plate and Pacific Plates. New Zealand is part of Zealandia, a microcontinent nearly half the size of Australia that broke away from the Gondwanan supercontinent about 83 million years ago. [1]
Also, New Zealand has vestiges of ancient temperate rain forests with plant species, such as giant club mosses, tree ferns and Nothofagus trees, dating from the time when the Zealandia subcontinent split off from Gondwana. New Zealand grasslands are dominated by vast spreadings of tussock grass fed upon by the native ground parrots. Most of New ...
The landscape of the Middle Jurassic polar region has been reconstructed from the remains of forests exposed in New Zealand, which were between 70 and 80°S during the Jurassic. The vegetation was largely made up of conifers, cycads , and other gymnosperms , as well as ferns; on the forest floor grew lycopods , bryophytes , fungi, and algae.
The natural history of New Zealand began when the landmass Zealandia – today an almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust with New Zealand and a few other islands peaking above sea level – broke away from the supercontinent Gondwana in the Cretaceous period. Before this time, Zealandia shared its past with Australia and Antarctica.
Te Wāhipounamu (Māori for "the place of greenstone") is a World Heritage Site in the south west corner of the South Island of New Zealand.. Inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1990 and covering 26,000 square kilometres (10,000 sq mi), the site incorporates four national parks:
Shear extrusion followed between 23.3 million to 5 million years ago with the New Zealand Alpine Fault rupture and a southwestward extension of the Campbell Plateau relative to the Challenger Plateau. [13] Southeast Indian Ocean Ridge expansion movement completely separated Zealandia from the Antarctic at about 10 million years ago. [13]
Detail from a 1657 map showing the western coastline of Nova Zeelandia (on this map, north is at the bottom). The first European visitor to New Zealand, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, named the islands Staten Land, believing they were part of the Staten Landt that Jacob Le Maire had sighted off the southern end of South America.