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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]
The boundary between Asia and Europe is unusual among continental boundaries because of its largely mountain-and-river-based characteristics north and east of the Black Sea. Asia and Europe are considered separate continents for historical reasons; the division between the two goes back to the early Greek geographers.
As the Triassic ended, Pangaea was breaking up into separate continents again. Rift valleys formed along the east coast as the North American, European and African plates diverged. [58] This process created rifts down the east coast to Florida. [47] One of these rift valleys was inundated with ocean water and became the young Atlantic Ocean.
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 ...
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]
93] [94] The supercontinent Rodinia is thought to have formed about 1 billion years ago and to have embodied most or all of Earth's continents, and broken up into eight continents around . The eight continents later re-assembled into another supercontinent called Pangaea ; Pangaea broke up into Laurasia (which became North America and Eurasia ...
Africa's collision with Europe formed the Mediterranean Sea, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean. Sea level changes exposed the land-bridge between Alaska and Asia. Near the end of the Pliocene, about (the start of the Quaternary Period), the current ice age began. The polar regions have since undergone repeated cycles of glaciation ...
Map of Pangaea with modern continental outlines. The supercontinent cycle is the quasi-periodic aggregation and dispersal of Earth's continental crust.There are varying opinions as to whether the amount of continental crust is increasing, decreasing, or staying about the same, but it is agreed that the Earth's crust is constantly being reconfigured.