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Supercontinents

 

In geology, a supercontinent is a landmass comprising more than one continental core, or craton. The assembly of cratons and accreted terranes that form Eurasia qualifies as a supercontinent today.

 

Although oceanic crust is continually being created and destroyed, long-lived stable parts of continents called cratons have remained undeformed for billions of years. Continental plates containing ancient cratons have episodically collided and assembled in global periods of orogenesis to form supercontinents. Supercontinents eventually become unstable, as such a large single landmass acts as a thermal lid, limiting escape of Earth's internal heat. Supercontinent breakup occurs when old crustal weaknesses (such as orogenic belts created during supercontinent assembly) overlay several mantle plumes, or due to the formation of a superplume. Dispersed fragments move across the globe to subsequently amalgamate to form another supercontinent. The process of supercontinent formation, breakup, and dispersal has continued cyclically through Earth's history.

 

It was originally believed that a single supercontinent, Pangea, had existed for a very long period of Earth's history. However more modern studies have shown that supercontinents form in cycles, coming together and breaking apart again, through continental drift, about every 250 million years.

 

The supercontinent Rodinia broke up roughly 750 million years ago. One of the fragments included large parts of the modern southern hemisphere continents. Continental drift then brought the fragments together in a different configuration, resulting in another supercontinent, Pangeaa, forming in the late Paleozoic. Pangea broke up into the northern and southern supercontinents, Laurasia and Gondwana.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paleozoic Era

Mesozoic Era