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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]
The continents later recombined to form Pannotia, then finally Pangaea, which broke apart . The present pattern of ice ages began about , then intensified at the end of the Pliocene. The polar regions have since undergone repeated cycles of glaciation and thawing, repeating every 40,000–100,000 years.
The Moon is formed around this time probably due to a protoplanet's collision into Earth. Archean: 4,000–2,500 Prokaryote life, the first form of life, emerges at the very beginning of this eon, in a process known as abiogenesis. The continents of Ur, Vaalbara and Kenorland may have existed around this time. The atmosphere is composed of ...
The simulation lets us see that some continents split up more dramatically than others, including North America and Africa, which started coming apart pretty rapidly some 200 million years ago and ...
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It postulates that the current continents formed from the breaking up of a supercontinent that formed hundreds of millions of years ago. Etymology From the 16th century the English noun continent was derived from the term continent land , meaning continuous or connected land [ 5 ] and translated from the Latin terra continens . [ 6 ]
The concept that the continents once formed a contiguous land mass was hypothesised, with corroborating evidence, by Alfred Wegener, the originator of the scientific theory of continental drift, in three 1912 academic journal articles written in German titled Die Entstehung der Kontinente (The Origin of Continents). [11]
In geology, a supercontinent is the assembly of most or all of Earth's continental blocks or cratons to form a single large landmass. [1] [2] [3] However, some geologists use a different definition, "a grouping of formerly dispersed continents", which leaves room for interpretation and is easier to apply to Precambrian times. [4]