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An image of Afro-Eurasia, the largest landmass on Earth. A landmass, or land mass, is a large region or area of land that is in one piece and not noticeably broken up by oceans. [1] [2] The term is often used to refer to lands surrounded by an ocean or sea, such as a continent or a large island.
The remaining 29.2% of Earth's crust is land, most of which is located in the form of continental landmasses within Earth's land hemisphere. Most of Earth's land is at least somewhat humid and covered by vegetation, while large sheets of ice at Earth's polar deserts retain more water than Earth's groundwater, lakes, rivers, and atmospheric ...
The name "Pangaea" is derived from Ancient Greek pan (πᾶν, "all, entire, whole") and Gaia or Gaea (Γαῖα, "Mother Earth, land"). [ 4 ] [ 9 ] The first to suggest that the continents were once joined and later separated may have been Abraham Ortelius in 1596. [ 10 ]
Pangaea, the supercontinent that existed about 200 million years ago and combined most of dry land on Earth into one giant landmass (according to the BBC), is well known.More obscure, however, is ...
This is a list of the world's countries and their dependencies, ranked by total area, including land and water. This list includes entries that are not limited to those in the ISO 3166-1 standard, which covers sovereign states and dependent territories. All 193 member states of the United Nations plus the two observer states are given a rank ...
According to modern definitions, a supercontinent does not exist today; [1] the closest is the current Afro-Eurasian landmass, which covers approximately 57% of Earth's total land area. The last period in which the continental landmasses were near to one another was 336 to 175 million years ago, forming the supercontinent Pangaea .
The atmosphere and oceans of the Earth continuously shape the land by eroding and transporting solids on the surface. [21] Earth's crust formed when the molten outer layer of Planet Earth cooled to form a solid mass [22] as the accumulated water vapour began to act in the atmosphere. Once land became capable of supporting life, biodiversity ...
Areas that meet that definition now cover 40.6% of all land on Earth, excluding Antarctica. And an additional 3% of the world’s currently humid areas are projected to become arid by the end of ...