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These include gymnosperms and the deciduous species of Nothofagus, as well as the New Zealand laurel, Corynocarpus laevigatus, and Laurelia novae-zelandiae. New Caledonia and New Zealand became separated from Australia by continental drift 85 million years ago. The islands still retain plants that originated in Gondwana and spread to the ...
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]
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.
Zealandia’s history is quite closely tied to the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, which broke up hundreds of millions of years ago. Zealandia followed suit—roughly 80 million years ago ...
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.
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]
The Australian plate is a major tectonic plate in the eastern and, largely, southern hemispheres. Originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwana, Australia remained connected to India and Antarctica until approximately when India broke away and began moving north.