Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Pangaea or Pangea (/ p æ n ˈ dʒ iː ə / pan-JEE-ə) [1] was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. [2] It assembled from the earlier continental units of Gondwana , Euramerica and Siberia during the Carboniferous approximately 335 million years ago, and began to break apart about 200 million years ...
According to the Pangaea Proxima hypothesis, the Atlantic and Indian Oceans will continue to get wider until new subduction zones bring the continents back together, forming a future Pangaea. Most continents and microcontinents are predicted to collide with Eurasia , just as they did when most continents collided with Laurentia .
He proposed that the continents had once formed a single landmass, called Pangaea, before breaking apart and drifting to their present locations. [32] Wegener was the first to use the phrase "continental drift" (1912, 1915) [5] [18] (German: "die Verschiebung der Kontinente") and to publish the hypothesis that the continents had somehow ...
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.
In addition to Novopangaea, two other hypothetical supercontinents—"Amasia" and Christopher Scotese's "Pangaea Ultima"—were illustrated in an October 2007 New Scientist article. [3] Another supercontinent prediction, Aurica , has been proposed in more recent times, suggesting the closures of both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Supercontinent cycles are not the same as the Wilson cycle, which is the opening and closing of an individual oceanic basin. The Wilson cycle rarely synchronizes with the timing of a supercontinent cycle. [1] However, supercontinent cycles and Wilson cycles were both involved in the creation of Pangaea and Rodinia. [6]
Antonio Snider-Pellegrini (1802–1885) was a French geographer and geologist who theorized about the possibility of continental drift, anticipating Wegener's theories concerning Pangaea by several decades. In 1858, Snider-Pellegrini published his book, La Création et ses mystères dévoilés ("The Creation and its Mysteries Unveiled").
Piper proposes an alternative hypothesis for this era and the previous ones. This idea rejects that Rodinia ever existed as a transient supercontinent subject to progressive break-up in the late Proterozoic and instead that this time and earlier times were dominated by a single, persistent "Paleopangaea" supercontinent.