The Pangaea supercontinent, which was surrounded by a single ocean, was one of the seven continents that existed 300 million years ago.
The modern theory of plate tectonics theorizes that the Earth's outer shell is broken up into several plates that slide over the mantle.
Over the course of the planet's 4.5 billion-year history, several supercontinents have formed and broken up, a result of circulation in the Earth's mantle, which makes up 80% of the planet's volume. The formation of supercontinents has changed the history of the planet.
The entire evolution of the planet has been driven by this. Brendan Murphy is a geology professor at the St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
RECOMMENDED VIDEOS FOR YOU...
Alfred Wegener proposed the idea of an ancient supercontinent called Pangaea after putting together several lines of evidence.
The first thing that was obvious was that thecontinents fit together like a tongue and grooves, something that was quite visible on any accurate map, Murphy said. The geologic record shows that the continents were all one land mass. Coal deposits in Pennsylvania have the same composition as those in Poland, Great Britain and Germany from the same time period. It's possible that North America and Europe were once a single landmass. Murphy said that the orientation of magnetic minerals in geologic sediments shows how Earth's magnetic poles migrated over geologic time.
The extinct seed fern Glossopteris can be found on different continents. The Central Pangaea Mountains were formed through the collision of the supercontinents Gondwana and Laurussia, and now lie on different continents.
According to the Online Etymology, the Greek word for "pan" comes from the Greek word for "all" or "Earth". The process of forming the supercontinent took a few hundred million years.
Gondwana, the largest continent in the Southern Hemisphere, spanned from the South Pole to the equator in the early days of the Phanerozoic eon, according to a chapter in the scientific book. The northern hemisphere was mostly covered by the ocean. The Iapetus ocean, which was named after a mythical Greek titan, was between the paleo-continents of Baltica and Gondwana.
According to the chapter written by Earth scientists, there was a major collision about 320 million years ago when Gondwana, Laurussia, and intervening terranes collided to form the Pangea supercontinent.
According to the chapter, Pangaea did not include all the continents at one time. The Paleotethys Ocean to the east of Pangea was wide throughout the Carboniferous and presented a barrier between the supercontinent and a number of large, independent Asian terranes.
The opening of the Neotethys Ocean was initiated by many former peri-Gondwanan terranes drifting off the north-eastern Gondwana margin.
Between 195 million and 170 million years ago, Pangaea broke up. The Central Atlantic Ocean opened about 195 million years ago, and that's when the break up began. Along previous sutures, the supercontinent fractured.
Laurasia split from Gondwana, which is now Africa, South America, Antarctica, India and Australia. Gondwana broke up about 150 million years ago. Africa and South America rifted, according to a 1970 article in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Around 60 million years ago, North America split from Europe.
It was made for very different climates. Murphy said that the interior of the continent may have been completely dry as it was locked behind mountain chains.
Murphy said that the coal deposits in the United States and Europe show that parts of the ancient supercontinent must have been a lush, tropical rainforest. Coal forms when dead plants and animals sink into swampy water, where pressure and water transform the material into peat, then coal.
Murphy told Live Science that the coal deposits tell them that there was plentiful life on land.
Climate models show that the continental interior of Pangaea was very seasonal. The researchers used data from the Moradi Formation to reconstruct the climate and ecology of the time when Pangaea existed. The climate was similar to the Lake Eyre Basin in Australia, with short, recurring wet periods that occasionally included catastrophic flash floods.
Where animals lived was influenced by the climate. In a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it was found that mammal relatives, known as cynodonts, lived in another region during the late Triassic. monsoon-like rains fell twice a year in the area where Cynodonts lived. In the north it only rained once a year. The researchers said it was likely that the cynodonts needed a water-rich area.
Whiteside said in a statement that it was interesting that something as basic as how the body deals with waste can restrict the movement of an entire group. Whiteside said that the reptiles had a competitive advantage over mammals, which is why they stayed there.
Many animal groups flourished during the 100 million years that Pangaea existed. The synapsids were the predecessors of mammals and flourished during the Permian period. The worst mass extinction in history was caused by Pangaea. Around 70% of the species in the world went extinct during the Great Dying, which took place around 252 million years ago.
The rise of archosaurs, a group of animals that eventually gave rise to crocodiles, birds and a plethora of reptiles, happened in the early Triassic period. Some of the earliest dinosaurs emerged on Pangaea, including theropods, which had air-filled bones and feathers similar to birds.
The current configuration of the world is not likely to be the last. Supercontinents have formed several times in the history of Earth, only to be split off into new continents. Australia is moving towards Asia, and the eastern part of Africa is slowly leaving the rest of the continent.
According to a 2012 study in the journal Gondwana Research, the emergence of other supercontinents in the Precambrian supereon appears to occur every 750 million years.
According to a 2010 article in the Journal of Geodynamics, most scientists believe that the supercontinent cycle is largely driven by circulation dynamics in the mantle.
The details get fuzzy. While the radioactive decay of unstable elements, such as uranium, likely comes from the heat formed in the mantle, scientists don't agree on whether there are mini-pockets of heat flow within the mantle, or if the entire shell is one big heat conveyor belt.
Scientists have created simulations to better understand continental movement. Earth scientists Masaki Yoshida and M. Santosh wrote an article about how they created simulations of continental movements after the break up of Pangaea 200 million years ago. The models show how plate motion and mantle convection forces broke apart to move large land mass. Pangaea's large mass insulated the mantle underneath, causing mantle flows that triggered the initial break up of the supercontinent. Radioactive decay of the upper mantle raised the temperature and caused mantle flows to break off the Indian subcontinent and initiate its northern movement.
The geological models were created to predict mantle and continental movement patterns for 250 million years in the future. The models suggest that the Pacific Ocean will close as Australia, North America, Africa, and Eurasia come together in the Northern Hemisphere. The two remaining continents, South America andAntarctica, are predicted to remain immobile and separate from the new supercontinent.
Carol Stoll is a Live Science contributor.
What is plate tectonics?
The Interior of the Earth was last modified on January 14, 2011.
The Online Etymology Dictionary.
Chapter 18 is about paleogeography and Pangea. 2021.
Robert S. Dietz and John C. The Journal of Geophysical Research is a journal. 1970.
C.V. and his colleagues wrote about Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, and Palaeoecology. The year 2016
The Early Evolutionary History of the Synapsida was written by Jun and Fernando.
The Geological Society of America will hold a meeting on May 19, 2021.
Whiteside, J.H., and his colleagues presented their work at the National Academy of Sciences. 2011.
On Pangaea, the supercontinent, latitude and rain dictated where species lived.
Joseph G. Gondwana research The year 2012.
M. Santosh. The Journal of Geodynamics is a journal. In 2010.
Masaki Yoshida and M. The geosciences frontier. This year.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
