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The four continents, plus Australia, added later.. Europeans in the 16th century divided the world into four continents: Africa, America, Asia, and Europe. [1] Each of the four continents was seen to represent its quadrant of the world—Africa in the south, America in the west, Asia in the east, and Europe in the north.
Asia and Europe are considered separate continents for historical reasons; the division between the two goes back to the early Greek geographers. In the modern sense of the term "continent", Eurasia is more readily identifiable as a "continent", and Europe has occasionally been described as a subcontinent of Eurasia. [68]
A continent is a large geographical region defined by the continental shelves and the cultures on the continent. [1] 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]
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The continents of Ur, Vaalbara and Kenorland may have existed around this time. The atmosphere is composed of volcanic and greenhouse gases. Proterozoic: 2,500–538.8 The name of this eon means "early life". Eukaryotes, a more complex form of life, emerge, including some forms of multicellular organisms.
An 1849 atlas labelled Antarctica as a continent but few atlases did so until after World War II. [115] Over time, the western concept of dividing the world into continents spread globally, replacing conceptions in other areas of the world. The idea of continents continued to become imbued with cultural and political meaning.
The continents later recombined to form Pannotia, 600–540 Ma. [10] [37] The first-known glaciations occurred during the Proterozoic, one that began shortly after the beginning of the eon, while there were at least four during the Neoproterozoic, climaxing with the Snowball Earth of the Varangian glaciation. [38]
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.