Pangaea: the Ancient Supercontinent

Pangaea The Ancient Supercontinent Throughout Earths history, fragments of continental perkiness have floated across the planets surface, pushed and pulled by plate tectonic motion. At propagation in the geologic past, these fragments (what we may now call continents) came together to carcass one large supercontinent, only to be broken a bea at once again by tectonic forces. The cycle of supercontinent construction and destruction took hundreds of millions of years. The closely recently created supercontinent was Pangaea, which came into being about 300 million years ago.Panthalassa, a giant ocean, surrounded it. In just 100 million years, though, Pangaea began to barge in apart. Tectonic forces created a north-south rift in the super-continent, separating it into two new continents, Laurasia and Gondwanaland. As the new continents separated, the rift filled in with water, eventually becoming the current(prenominal) Atlantic oceanic. Laurasia, composed of the present-day co ntinents of Asia, Europe, and marriage America (Greenland), occupied the Yankee hemisphere.Gondwanaland, composed of the present-day continents of Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and South America, occupied the southern hemisphere. The subcontinent of India was also part of Gondwanaland. By 135 million years ago, the breakup of Laurasia and Gondwanaland was underway, leading to the present-day locations of the continents. The forces that formed Pangaea, then broke it apart, are still at work. North America, South America, and Greenland are all moving westward.Australia, India, and the western part of Africa are all moving northward. Europe and Asia are moving eastward. The Atlantic Ocean is becoming larger, and the Pacific Ocean is becoming smaller. Although impossible to know when, at some point in the future, millions of years from now, the continents may well act together to form yet another super-continent. Beginning some 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) infra the surface and e xtending to a depth of 3,960 miles (6,370 kilometers), the very center of the planet, is Earths core.Composed of the metal elements iron out and nickel, the core has a solid inner portion and a fluid outer portion. Scientists estimate that temperatures in the core exceed 9,900F (5,482C), creating extreme point heat energy. Were this energy not released in some manner, Earths interior would melt. go currents, called convection currents, carry the energy to the surface of the planet, where it is released. It is the release of this energy underneath the lithosphere that leads to the formation of the major geologic features on the surface of the planet.