User:Bettymnz4/Supercontinent

Definition

A supercontinent is a landmass comprising more than one continental core, or craton.

Mechanism of creation and dispersal

4,560 to 4,460 million years ago

Continent-continent collision

It took more than 100 million years of cooling after the earth was formed before the early crusts remained stable enough to escape being recycled back into the mantle; these crustal pieces collided with similar crusts and finally formed microcontinents. Present-day ideas about the past history of continents come from studies of orogenic belts around the world formed by the collision of continents, data on stabilization ages of ancient cratonic segments, palaeomagnetic data, and common lithology and fossils in now-separaated continents.

Wilson Cycle theory

Hotspot causing rifting of tectonic plates

Oceanic-oceanic convergence.

The Wilson Cycle is named after plate tectonics pioneer J. Tuzo Wilson and describes the periodic opening and closing of ocean basins.

Continental crust is thicker – at 85 to 170 km (53 to 106 mi) – than oceanic crust so it conducts heat less efficiently. Rifting of a continent begins with hotspot volcanism at rift valleys. When a supercontinent covers a portion of the earth’s surface the heat from a hotspot accumulates under the crust; the land domes upward to create a superswell. The continued bulging at the hotspot causes supercontinents to rift apart, with broken-off continents sliding off the superswell. The continents then move toward colder sinking regions in the mantle. After the continents are separated, heat from the mantle is more easily conducted through the newly formed ocean basin; the crust under a rift is only 32 to 48 km (20 to 30 mi) thick. After enough heat has escaped, the continents stop their outward progress and begin to return to their places of origin.

The landmasses surrounding the Pacific Basin apparently have not undergone continental collision. The Pacific Basin has narrowed and widened in response to the continental breakup dispersal and reconvergence in the area of the Atlantic Ocean. When today’s continents have reached their maximum dispersal (millions of years from now), the crust of the Atlantic Ocean bordering the continents will grow dense enough to sink into the mantle; creating subduction zones around the Atlantic Basin. This subduction into the mantle will begin the process of closing the Atlantic Basin. Eventually the continents will rejoin into another supercontinent over a large mantle downflow and the cycle of dispersal and rejoining will begin again. The cycle of rifting and patching repeats itself roughly every 450 million years.

Condie theory

Earth's temperatures

Cross section of earth

Based on episodic age distribution of continental crust, Condie proposed that continents grew episodically and had major periods of growth 2,700 and 1,900 million years ago. In his model, each maximum in continental growth reflects a superplume event caused by catastrophic slab avalancing at the 660 km (410 mi) discontinuity and correlates with supercontinent formation. Each Precambrian event lasts no longer than 100 million years.

Earth's history can be divided into three stages: stage 1 is earth's history of more than 2,400 million years ago characterized by a hot, chaotically convecting mantle, rapid recycling of juvenile crust into the upper mantle, one major superplume event at 2,700 million years ago, and several minor superplume events and significant continental growth at 2,700 million. Superplume events are multiple plumes that usually originate from the D" layer near the core-mantle boundary over a period of less than 100 million years. Condie theorizes that a superplume event is initiated by an episodic and catastrophic slab avalanche through the 660 km (410 mi) mantle discontinuity. Seismic tomographic results suggest that descending slabs are currently sinking into the lower mantle, this may not have been the case in the geologic past when the earth was hotter. In a hotter mantle with a larger Raleigh number – such as probably existed in the Archean – the amount of leakage across the 660 km (410 mi) discontinuity is considerably reduced, resulting in layered convection. Computer models of mantle evolution also suggest that increased internal heating of the mantle strongly favors layering in the mantle; this would have been the case during the Archean when heat production by radioactive isotopes was higher than today. Slab avalanches may not occur in layered convections. It may have been in the Late Archean, when the 660 km (410 mi) discontinuity became less robust, that slabs occasionally fell through to the lower mantle. There are main episodes of production of juvenile continental crust centered at 2,700 million years ago, and two episodes of penetrative, whole-mantle convection occurred at 2,700 million years ago. The 2,700-million-year-old superplume is believed to be associated with the first supercontinent through collision of thick oceanic crusts.

Stage 2 is earth's history from 2,400 to 1600 million years ago; it was characterized by one major superplume event at 1,900 million years ago – with production of juvenile continental crust – centered at 1,900 million years ago. Two, several minor superplume events and significant continental growth at 1,900 million years ago. Cooling of the earth may have been responsible for the shutdown or decrease in intensity of slab avalanches after 1,900 million years ago. As the mantle temperature and Rayleigh number decreased with time, slabs should have more easily been able to penetrate the 660 km (410 mi) discontinuity, leading eventually to whole-mantle convection.

Stage 3 is earth's history since 1,600 million years ago during which two or three minor superplume events occurred with minor increases in production rate of continental crust. and two minor episodes at 280 and 100 million years ago. In addition, a third episode may have occurred 480 million years ago.

The following major assumptions are made in developing a superplume model that ties together catastrophic slab avalanches in the mantle, the supercontinent cycle and the episodic production of continental crust:

Supercontinents form over mantle downswellings and break up over mantle upwellings. Mantle upwellings are chiefly responsible for the breakup of supercontinents. 3. Mantle temperature has decresed exponentially with time as thorium, uranium and potassium isotopes have decayed, the the Rayleigh number of the mantly has decreased similaryly. 4. With time, convection in the mantle has changed from layered in the Precambrian to dominantly whole mantle after.

5. the 660 km (410 mi) seismic discontinuity has become a progressivly less effective barrier to the descent of lithospheric slabs with time as mantle temperature decreased. 6. During earth history, there have been two major and five or more minor superplume events. Each event involved avalancing of slabs through the 660 km (410 mi) discontinuity, consequent production of mantly plums in the D" layer, and enhanced production of juvenile crust. In addition, the formation of a supercontinent appears to have been associated with some superplume events.

Beginning with a supercontinent, computer models suggest that it takes on average 200-400 myr for shielding of a large supercontinent to cause a mantle upwelling beneath it. The upwelling breaks the supercontinent over approximately a 220-million-year period. In the case of the 2.7 and 1.9 ga superplume events, the breakup may be the trigger for the avalanching of slabs through the 660 km (410 mi) discontinuity. Alternatively, the collapse of slabs may result from a threshold for total slab mass at a given location on the 660 km (410 mi) discontinuity, and in this case accumulation could be spread over several hundred million years beginning when a supercontinent fragments. From the time a slab avalanche begins to the time juvenile crust is produced is probably less than 100 million years; slabs can sink to the bottom of the mantle in 100 million years or less and in a mantle in which viscosity increases with depth, mantle plumes can rise to the base of the lithosphere in a few million years. This scenario suggests a correlation of slab avalanches with supercontinent formation, rather than with supercontinent breakup. If supercontinents are cyclic, they are not periodic. Supercontinent breakup and aggregration overlay by 50 to 100 million years, perhaps with an increase in the proportion of overlap in the Phanerozoic.

The duration of supercontinent formation and the total lifespan of supercontinents decrease with age. The duration of supercontinent formation (including enhanced production of juvenile crust) in the first two superconcontinents is 500 million years, or less decreasing to about 300 million years in Rodinia and then to 100 to 200 million years for Gondwana and Pangea. Paralleling this decrease is a decline in the volume of juvenile continental crust produced during each supercontinent cycle. Approximately 30-50% of the present continental crust may have been produced during formation of each of the first two supercontinents at 2.7 and 1.9 ga,

As the earth gets older, superplume events will fade out before the supercontinent cycle comes to an end because the 660 km (410 mi) seismic discontinuity becomes more permeable to descending slabs as the mantle cools and the Rayleigh number drops. With the exception of three possible small superplume events in the Ordovician, late Paleozoic and Cretaceous, superplume events appear to have ended {{mya|1900|million years ago. The supercontinent cycle may continue as long as convection continues in the mantle in response to shielding of parts of the mantle by large lithosperic plates. An early model of the growth of earth’s crust visualizes a decreasing rate of recycling of new crusts with time, enabling earth to achieve a production rate balancing the recycling loss and maintaining a steady system. Recent studies on mantle chemistry and radiometric dating, have indicated stepwise extraction of continental crust leaving an increasing volume of depleted mantle. Seismic tomography have revealed the subducting crustal slabs penetrating the 660 km (410 mi) thermal transition zone separating the upper and lower mantle, and reaching deep into the lower mantle. This implied a single whole-mantle convection. Episodes of crust-generation rise whenever the subducted continental slabs which were piled up at the 660 km (410 mi) barrier sank catastrophically deep into the lower mantle and modified the prevailing layered mantle convection temporarily to whole-mantle convection. Such episodes promoted superplumes to rise from the core-mantle boundary carrying fresh crusts with replenishments to the depleted upper mantle. Modeled on the ideas of changing mantle convection, Condie inferred major episodes or superevents of catastrophic slab sinking or slab avalanching as he calls it, at 2,700, 1,900 and 1,200 million years ago, and minor ones in late Palaeozoic and mid-Cretaceous, the last two less intense due to changed thermal state of the mantle (i.e. decrease in Rayleigh number) making the 660 km (410 mi) junction more permeable. Condie associated these events with excessive juvenile crust production, an inference supported by the abundant zircon ages clustering at these time intervals and also by the Nd isotopic data of the periods. He argued that the synchronous incidence of several geological events like rise in sea level (inferred from intracratonic, passive and platform sediments), abundance of black shales, banded-iron deposits and phosphorites, during the 2,700- and 1,900-million-year-old as well as initiation of warm climate periods due to enhanced CO₂ accumulation are additional evidences. Condie has modelled two modes of supercontinent formation: (1) A sequential cycle lasting for 600–800 million years beginning with (a) the breakup of an already existing supercontinent and the initiation of slab avalanching followed by (b) immense plume-delivered fresh crusts to form a new supercontinent; (c) with the arrival of slabs deep into the lower mantle, fresh crusts underplate the continent’s lithosphere and thermally insulate its mantle below. This facilitates heat buildup elsewhere forcing (d) mantle upwellings to break the new supercontinent and the cycle gets repeated. (2) Secondly, Condie envisages formation of a supercontinent by the merger of another large continent without itself undergoing fragmentation, e.g. growth of Pangea 450 to 250 million years ago to which Gondwana joined without fragmentation.

An evaluation of crustal growth through time has indicated that periods of major crustal growth and assembly of supercontinents seem to be related and nearly a dozen small and big continents, including a few submerged microcontinents, have formed, parted and reassembled.

In his opinion, small supercontinents, unlike the larger ones, fail to fragment completely due to insufficient thermal shielding of the mantle and consequent absence of upwelling to breakup the lithosphere of the supercontinent. Santosh doubts this view since the breakup of Columbia, a pre-Rodinian supercontinent, which was one of the two largest supercontinents, failed to produce plume upwellings. Thermal shielding beneath Pangea and associated plume activity may have initiated the breakup, there is also the view that slab pull force, combined with deep mantle convection flows, could as well be the main force behind the breakup.

By ~ 100 Ma, as North America drifted away from Africa, the central Atlantic Ocean began to form and is still growing. This drift brought about the closure of the Tethys Ocean, leaving Mediterranean, Caspian and the Baltic seas as its relics. The Indian Ocean began forming as Australia and Antarctica rotated away from Africa. By 65 million years ago Africa had rejoined Eurasia and the Indian subcontinent headed northward to collide with Asia. Several continental plate collisions, which may represent the beginnings of a new supercontinent paralleled the breakup of Pangea like the China – Mongolia–Asia (150 Ma), West Burma–South Asia (130 Ma), Lhasa–Asia (75 Ma), India–Asia (55 Ma), Australia–Indonesia (25 Ma) and several lesser scale collisions along the Pacific margins of Asia and North and South Americas between 150 and 80 Ma. In the next 50 million years, it is expected that Atlantic Ocean will stop expanding and develop subduction zones along its passive margins. Global increase in the tectonism will be active along the eastern continental margin of U.S., Western Europe and West Africa and a new sea will come into existence in East Africa, and Australia is expected to cross the equator and once again continents will collide and form a single large supercontinent and resume the supercontinent cycle. Considerable debate has now centered around the role of mantle plumes in triggering breakup of large continents, especially those that existed during the last billion years, when the mantle’s heat potential (Rayleigh number) was decreasing. Many doubt the ascent of plumes above the 660 km (410 mi) barrier where the prevailing physico-chemical conditions would tend to impede their buoyant movement further upward. Advocates of non-plume processes have pointed out how the separation of Australia and Antarctica from Gondwana took place without any plume-related magmatism. Quite a few agencies have been identified for the continental fragmentation like plate boundary driving forces, prevalent plate tectonic dynamics or combination of the latter and mantle upwelling from transition zone as well as from core-mantle boundary; and their movements or migrations are not only due to plate tectonism but also induced by earth’s centrifugal forces correcting the imbalanced continental mass distribution – true polar wander. There are several geological processes that could fragment and shift the continents, but their potential to do so appears to vary with time. Processes that have been very effective during early earth times seem to be less dominant in later geological periods, a feature that possibly has fuelled the current debate. Only the on-going studies on changing mantle dynamics, its thermal evolution, precise dates and possible revision of palaeolatitudes through more palaeomagnetic data could resolve some of the uncertainties and help understand the supercontinent medley.

Milankovitch cycles

The earth is subject to perpetual cyclical changes over a wide range of frequencies because of its position and movement relative to other solar system bodies. Its periodicities are 20,000 to 100,000 years. Fossil records show that communities of plants and animals are temporary, lasting only a few thousand years.

Climate rules changed about 450,000 years ago. The world became more orderly and predictable. It's when internal oscillation in the climate system became co-equal with Milankovitch forcing as a governing factor of ice-age dynamics. Negative feedback on glaciation, resulting from wearing down the base areas for ice-sheet buildup, which makes it more difficult to restart growing ice sheets after removal of ice, and makes it more difficult to build successive ice sheets to the same limit as previous ones. The new regime is characterized by strong terminations. An overall warming trend since 12-11-10 is nicely documented in the warm-water pool expansion in the western equatorial Pacific (which in turn stimulated reef growth).

Time series of ocean properties provide a measure of global ice volume and monitor key features of the wind-driven and density-driven circulations over the past 400,000 years. Cycles with periods near 23,000, 41,000 and 100,000 years dominate this climatic narrative. When the narrative is examined in a geographic array of time series, the phase of each climatic oscillation is seen to progress through the system in essentially the same geographic sequence in all three cycles. During the 1960s and 1970s, when geologists were able to read and date the climatic record in ocean sediments, evidence mounted that glacial variability over the past half million years exhibits a distinct pattern that is dominated by cycles with periods near 23,000, 41,000 and 100,000 years. This finding rekindled interest in the Milankovitch theory and led eventually to a demonstration that the astronomical cycles of precession, obliquity and eccentricity are climatically important influences. It is now widely believed that these astronomical influences, through their control of the seasonal and latitudinal distribution of incident solar radiation, either drive the major climate cycles externally or set the phase of oscillations that are driven internally.

Ice House mode

Earth's past climate can be determined by mapping the distribution of ancient coal beds, desert deposits, tropical soils, salt deposits, glacial material, and plant and animal distribution of those species sensitive to climate. During the past 2,000 million years the earth's climate has alternated between an Ice House and a Hot House. Ice House mode when there is ice at the poles; polar ice sheets expand and contract because of variations in earth's orbit. The last expansion of the polar ice sheets occurred about 18,000 years ago.

A possible relationship between major changes in global ice volume, geomagnetic variations and short-term climate cooling has been investigated through a study of climate and geomagnetic records of the past 400,000 years. Calculations suggest that redistribution of the earth's water mass can cause rotational instabilities that lead to magnetic excursions; these magnetic variations in turn may lead to rapid coolings through several proposed mechanisms. Such double coincidences of magnetic excursions and sudden cooling and glacial advance at times of major ice-volume changes have occurred at about 13,500, 30,000, 110,000 and 180,000 years ago. The last four and possibly five times of maximum eccentricity of the Earth's orbit were closely followed by magnetic excursions; catastrophic cooling and rapid ice buildup accompanied several of these excursions. Thus, Milankovitch cycle parameters may lead to glaciation through both insolation changes and geomagnetic effects on climate.

Glaciation cycles with periods near 23,000 and 41,000 years have influenced virtually every part of the global climate system for over 500,000 years. These cycles are continuous linear responses to orbitally driven changes in the earth's radiation budget.

Relation to evolution

Snider-Pellegrini Wegener fossil map

About 390 million years ago fresh-water fish were able to migrate from the southern hemisphere continents to North America and Europe. Forests grew for the first time in the equatorial regions of current-day Arctic Canada.

Less isolation and more diversification, occurs when the continents are together, producing one continent and one ocean with one coast. In Latest Neoproterozoic to Early Paleozoic times, when the tremendous proliferation of diverse metazoa occurred, isolation of marine environments resulted from the breakup of Pannotia.

An arrangement of north&ndashsouth continents and oceans leads to more diversity and isolation than east–west oceans and continents. This forms zones that are separated by water or land and that merge into climatically different zones along communication routes to the north and south. Through the Cenozoic, isolation has been maximized by an arrangement of N-S ocean basins and continents.

Basic information about each supercontinent

Understanding the formation of cratons and orogenic belts is important to the modelling of supercontinental assemblies. Continental cratons began to assemble by 3,000 million years ago. The oldest assembly, Ur, was followed by Arctica at 2,500 million years ago and Atlantica at 2,000 million years ago These three continental blocks apparently remained coherent until the breakup of Pangea. Nearly all of earth's continental blocks were assembled into one large landmass during at least three times in earth history.

Continental collision makes fewer and larger continents while rifting makes more and smaller continents. With the absence of fossils of hard-shelled organisms and the paucity of reliable paleomagnetic data, it is difficult to produce paleogeographic maps for much of the Precambrian. With available data, 650 million years is as far back as we can go. The reconstruction of continents and supercontinents prior to about 1,000 million years ago has involved much speculation in the past, but data from several recent studies have narrowed down many of the ambiguities.

Geological supercontinents

Vaalbara

South Africa's Kaapvaal craton is outlined on this map.

The Pilbara craton is the red region in western Australia.

Vaalbara formed from protocontinents and was a supercontinent by 3,100 million years ago; it broke up by 2,800 million years ago.

The Barberton greenstone belt of South Africa and the eastern Pilbara block of Western Australia provide information about Earth's surface environments between 3,500 and 3,200 million years ago, including evidence for four large bolide impacts that likely created large craters, deformed the target rocks and altered the environment. Identical radiometric dating ages of 3,470 ± 2 million years for the oldest impact events from each craton were obtained. These deposits represent a single global fallout layer that is associated with sedimentation by an impact-generated tsunami and in Western Australia is represented by a major erosional unconformity.

Layers of sand-sized silicate spherules in 3,500- to 3,200-million-year-old greenstone belts in South Africa and Western Australia having primary compositions resembling those of immediately underlying rock sequences. The layers and particles appear to be unrelated to volcanic activity; these spherules may represent melt droplets formed during meteorite or comet impacts. If so, these spherules are the oldest-known terrestrial impact products.

Ages in the range 4,000 to 3,600 million years have been reported for the oldest, continental, granitoid orthogneisses, whose magmatic precursors were probably formed by partial melting or differentiation from a mafic, mantle-derived source.

The oldest known supracrustal volcanic and sedimentary rocks, with an age of 3,800 to 3,700 million years, occur in West Greenland. They were deposited in water, and several of the sediments contain 13C-depleted graphite microparticles, which have been claimed to be biogenic.

The simplest interpretation of existing isotopic data is for a slightly depleted, close-to-chondritic, essentially homogeneous early Archaean mantle; this does not favour the existence of a sizeable, permanent continental crust in the early Archaean.

By 3,650 million years ago production of continental crust was well underway, and global tectonic and petrogenetic regimes increasingly resembled those of later epochs.

An older rock formation located in present-day Greenland dates back from Hadean times. The oldest rocks – 3.85 billion years old – from southwest Greenland have coupled neodymium-142 excesses (from decay of now-extinct samarium-146; half-life, 103 million years) and neodymium-143 excesses (from decay of samarium-147; half-life, 106 billion years), relative to chondritic meteorites, that directly date the formation of chemically distinct silicate reservoirs in the first 30 million to 75 million years of Earth history.

Komatii Formation (3.475 Ga)

Ur

Ur, a 3,000-million-year-old assembly, was the integration of some of the oldest cratons – the African Kaapvaal craton; the Indian Western Dharwar, Singhbhum, and probably Eastern Dharwar and Bhandara–Bastar cratons; the Australian Pilbara craton; the lesser-known craton of Eastern Antarctica; the Zimbabwe craton subsequently accreted to the Kaapvaal craton; and the Yilgarn craton in present-day Western Australai accreted to the Pilbara craton by 2,500 million year ago.

It was named for the German word 'Ur', meaning original.

Kenorland (Artica)

The younger continent Kenorland (Arctica) was an accretion of the ancient Canadian Shield, Greenland, Siberia and Wyoming cratons in North America.

formed about 2,700 million years ago and broke apart sometime after 2,500 million years ago into the cratons of Laurentia, Baltica, Australia and Kalahari. Kenorland: ~2.7 to ~2.1 billion years ago. Kenorland (~2.7 Ga ago, Neoarchean sanukitoid cratons and new continental crust formed Kenorland. Protracted tectonic magna plume rifting occurred 2.48 to 2.45 Ga and this contributed to the Paleoproterozoic glacial events in 2.45 to 2.22 Ga. Final breakup occurred ~2.1 Ga.)

Atlantica

Another early continent Atlantica – named because it opened to form the southern Atlantic Ocean – was comprised of cratons having similar geologic sequences in West Africa and northeast South America that stabilized around 2,100 to 2,000 Million years ago.

Nena

The continent Nena (for northern Europe and North America) (Figure 1 c) was formed around ~ 1.8 Ga, by fusion of parts of ~ 2 Ga old Baltic and Ukranian cratons with equally old cratons along the eastern margin of Greenland and North America (Arctica).

Nena (~1.8 Ga)

Columbia

The oldest assembly comparable in size to Pangea was probably Columbia, which formed at 1,800 Ma and began to rift at 1,500 Ma.

Recently, Rogers and Santosh have inferred that a major supercontinent – Columbia that carried all of earth’s continental blocks between 1,900 and 1,500 million years ago existed even prior to Rodinia, the supercontinent so far considered the earliest one. They have based Columbia’s existence (i) on the fit of mid-Proterozoic rift valleys in Eastern India with the rifts of Columbia region in North America (ii) from the presence of 2,000-million-year-old fluvio-deltaic deposits in all cratonic blocks in South America and West Africa, and (iii) from the occurrence of petrologically and magnetically similar rocks over thousands of kilometers between Arizona and Western Russia. Columbia, supposed to be a composite of Ur, Arctica, Nena, Atlantica, and created during the 2,100– to 1,800-million year-old global orogeny, fragmented between 1,600 and 1,400 million years ago and separated Atlantica from Nena.

A supercontinent, Columbia, may have contained nearly all of the earth's continental blocks at some time between 1,900 and 1,500 million years ago. At that time, eastern India, Australia and attached parts of Antarctica were apparently sutured to western North America, and the eastern margin of North America, southern margin of Baltica/North China, and western margin of the Amazon shield formed a continuous zone of continental outbuilding. Fragmentation began at 1,600 million years ago, when rifting occurred in North China. Rifting continued until about1,400 million years ago in most of Columbia, and a similar age of rifting north of the Zimbabwe craton of southern Africa suggests that an entire continental block stretching from Australia to South Africa separated from Columbia at this time. Further separation of North America from South America/Africa and rotation of the different blocks ultimately resulted in their reattachment during the Grenville orogeny to form the supercontinent Rodinia.

Columbia, also called Nuna (~1.8 — 1.5 Ga ago)

another continent?

Based on palaeomagnetic data, a paleo- Pangean supercontinent with parts of Atlantica, Ur, and Arctica (East Gondwana- West Gondwana-Laurentia) has also been proposed. In fact, recent studies have indicated that at least seven independent continents or microcontinents must have existed around 750 Ma. For example, the prevalence of common geological features like crustal stress patterns, rifts and magmatic events (coinciding Malani magmatism, 800– 700 Ma) in NW India, Iran, Nubian- Arabian Shield, Seychelles, Madagascar, and Somalia have prompted the view that these lands must have been part of a single large landmass – the Malani supercontinent, which later accreted to Rodinia.

Rodinia

Columbia was followed by Rodinia, which lasted from 1100 Ma to 700 Ma.

The northern portion of Rodinia began breaking up 800 to 750 million years ago, around which time, rifting commenced in southern Rodinia. According to Condie18, neither the breakup of Rodinia nor its formation witnessed any unusual rates of juvenile crust production (except for a few ophiolites during Pan-African orogeny) as in the earlier superevents at 1.9 and 2.7 Ga, and hence he feels that supercontinent cycle need not always be associated with such superevents.

The fragments of Columbia reassembled as Rodinia around 1100–1000 Ma. According to most favoured configurations referred to as SWEAT (Southwest US–East Antarctica), Atlantica rotated and collided with Nena, while the expanded Ur parted from their Columbian configuration adjoining North America. The reconstruction of Rodinia has been based on scant data of paleolatitudes of a few assembled members, it has given rise to some alternate models such as suturing of Eastern Australia to western North America, Siberia positioned adjoining western North America; and of India, Madagascar, Seychelles, Siberia and South African cratons in positions differing from established Rodinia structure.

About 1100 mya Rodinia was assembled. It appears that North America formed the core of this supercontinent. The east coast of North America was adjacent to western South America, and the west coast of North America lay next to Australia and Antartica.

Rodinia split apart about 750 mya into two pieces, opening the Panthalassic Ocean. North America rotated southward toward the ice-coverred South Pole. The northern half of Rodinia – composed mainly of Antartica, Australia, India, Arabia and continental fragments that would become China – rotated coounterclockwise northward across the North Pole.

The Late Precambrian Ice House was very severe, because continents were near either the South and North poles.

Between the two halves of Rodinia lay a third continent, the Congo craton, made up of much of north-central Africa. It was caught in the middle as the two pieces of Rodinia collided with it.

broke apart about ANOTHER SITE SAYS 600 750 million years ago. One of the fragments included large parts of the continents now located in the southern hemisphere. For example, the supercontinent before Pannotia, Rodinia, existed 1,100 billion to 750 million years ago – a mere 150 million years before Pannotia. Rodinia (~1.1 Ga— ~750 million years ago)

Pannotia

Dalzie has speculated brief existence of a supercontinent – Pannotia, during late Neoproterozoic, evolved from collision of fragmented parts of Rodinia (Baltica, Laurentia, and Siberia) with Gondwana during 580–540 Ma. Pannotia fragmented in the final phase of Gondwana formation and this phase also marked the Cambrian explosion of skeletelized metazoans (~ 545–500 Ma). The period was notable for global tectonic changes like the opening up of Pacific Ocean basin, erosion of orogens, oceanic spreading ridges and subduction zones.

By the end of the Precambrian, about 550mya the three continents collided to form a new supercontinent, Pannotia. This mountain building event is known as the Pan-African Orogeny. The split of Pannotia was initiated by oceanic spreading ridge, which separated Laurentia from Gondwana, Baltica and Siberia.

, formed about 600 million years ago, and its dispersal formed the fragments that ultimately collided to form Pangaea. Pannotia (~600 — ~540 million years ago)

Gondwana

The development of Gondwana, coinciding with Pan-African orogeny, occurred around 600 to 500 million years ago through fusion of East and West Gondwana. East Gondwana formed around the 3,000-million-year-old cratonic components of Ur during mid-Proterozoic and was complete with accretion of Northern India along the Central Indian tectonic zone, Australia and Eastern Antarctica with Eastern Ghats of India. The assembly of East Gondwana is considered polyphase and at least two main periods of orogenesis between 750 to 620 million years ago and between 570 to 530 millionyears ago are discernible and also East Gondwana was never a united continent and its assembly paralleled final assembly of greater Gondwana and did not come into existence till Cambrian. West Gondwana was predominantly made up of the 2,000-million-year-old cratons of Atlantica, younger crusts of Kalahari–Congo cratons and Arabia (Nubian– Arabian shield) around 870 to 750 million years ago. East and West Gondwana collided during the Pan-African orogeny and the northwest–southeast-trending Achchan Kovil shear zone in southern India is thought to be part of their suture which is considered to extend from Mozambique Belt to Maud Land in Antarctica. East and West Gondwana combined to form Gondwana at 500 million years ago, and it joined with Laurasia to form Pangea at {{mya|250|million years ago.

Gondwana formed about 514 million years ago and was located at the South Pole. The continents were flooded by shallow seas. The Middle Ordovician time period – 458 million years ago – was one of the coldest times in Earth history. Ice covered much of the southern region of Gondwana.

During the Late Jurassic (161.2 to 145.5 million years ago) the Central Atlantic Ocean was narrow between the northwestern coast of Africa and the eastern shore of the United States. Eastern Gondwana had begun to separate from Western Gondwana.

Euramerica

(~300 million years ago)

Pangea

Pangea, the youngest supercontinent, began forming around 450 million years ago and was complete 250 million yeas ago. It was a composite of Gondwana on its south and an already-existing large continental fragment Laurasia (North America, Greenland and Europe with accretion of some segments of Asia) on its north and it stretched 15,000 km (9,300 mi) north-south 8,000 km (5,000 mi) east-west covering all climatic zones, polar to equatorial. According to Condie, Pangea was actually a continued growth of Gondwana and that Gondwana did not fragment before merging with Pangea.

Pangea formed during the Early Carboniferous time of 356 million years ago. The Paleozoic oceans between Euroamerica and Gondwana were closing to form the Appalacian and Variscan mountains. Four-legged vertibrates evolved in the coal swamps near the equaator.

By the Late Carboniferous time of 306 million years ago the continents that comprise present-day North America and Europe had collided with the southern mountains of Gondwana to form the western half of Pangea. Ice coverd much of the southern hemisphere and vast coal swamps had formed along the equator.

Vast deserts covered western Pangea and reptiles spread across the supercontinent. During the Permian-Triassic extinction event of 251.4 million yeas ago 99% of all life perished; this ended the Paleozoic Era. Life rediversifies after the Permain-Triassic extinction, and warm-water faunas spread acrss the Tetys Ocean, in the area of present-day Australia, India, Arabia, Turkey, Iran and Tibet.

Immediately after the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event – south-central Asia had assembled. The wide Tethys Ocean separated the northern continents from Gondwana. Pangea was intact, but the first rumblings of continental breakup were occurring.

During the middle Jurassis (about 167 million years ago Pangea began to break up.

Laurentia

The rifting of Pangea at ~ 170 Ma formed the northern continent Laurasia (North America, Europe and Asia) and a southern continent Gondwanaland (South America, Africa, India, Australia and parts of Antarctica and Southeast Asia), the Tethys Ocean forming between them.

Laurentia collides with Baltica about 425 million years ago, closing the Iapetus Ocean and forming the Old Red Sandstone continent..

pre-Pangea

By 390 million years ago the early Paleozoic ocieans were closing to form a pre-Pangea. .

another name

During the Cretaceous Period (145.5 to 65.5 million years ago) the South Atlantic Ocean had opened, thus separating South America and Africa. India separated from Madagascar and moved northward to collide with Eurasia. The northeastern coast of Canada remains attached to the west coast of Greenland; Greenland is attached to the northern coasts of the British Isles, and Scandinavia. Australia and Antarctica remain attached.

yet another name

By the 65-million-year-old Late Cretaceous Period the oceans had widened and India was approaching the southern margin of Asia. Also about 65.5 million years ago a comet struck in the area of present-day Chicxulub, Yucatán, Mexico; the 16 km (9.9 mi) wide comet caused global climate changes that killed the dinosuars and many other forms of life.

About 55 to 50 million years ago Australia detached from Antarctica and began to move northward. About 35 million years ago India collided with Asia forming the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalaya Mountains.

Antarctica was covered with ice 20 million years ago and the northern continents were rapidly cooling.

Submerged continents

Kerguelen Plateau · Zealandia