Supercontinent - Video Learning - WizScience.com

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• published: 02 Sep 2015
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In geology, a "supercontinent" is the assembly of most or all of the Earth's continental blocks or cratons to form a single large landmass. However, the definition of a supercontinent can be ambiguous. Many tectonicists such as Hoffman use the term "supercontinent" to mean "a clustering of nearly all continents". This definition leaves room for interpretation when labeling a continental body and is easier to apply to Precambrian times. Using the first definition provided here, Gondwana is not considered a supercontinent, because the landmasses of Baltica, Laurentia and Siberia also existed at the same time but physically separate from each other. The landmass of Pangaea is the collective name describing all of these continental masses when they were in a close proximity to one another. This would classify Pangaea as a supercontinent. According to the definition by Rogers and Santosh , a supercontinent does not exist today. Supercontinents have assembled and dispersed multiple times in the geologic past . The positions of continents have been accurately determined back to the early Jurassic. However, beyond , continental positions are much less certain. There are two contrasting models for supercontinent evolution through geological time. The first model theorizes that at least two separate supercontinents existed comprising Vaalbara and Kenorland . The Neoarchean supercontinent consisted of Superia and Sclavia. These parts of Neoarchean age broke off at ~2300 and and portions of them later collided to form Nuna . Nuna continued to develop during the Mesoproterozoic, primarily by lateral accretion of juvenile arcs, and in Nuna collided with other land masses, forming Rodinia. Between ~800 and Rodinia broke apart. However, before completely breaking up, some fragments of Rodinia had already come together to form Gondwana by . Pangaea formed by through the collision of Gondwana, Laurentia, Baltica, and Siberia. Wiz Science™ is "the" learning channel for children and all ages. SUBSCRIBE TODAY Disclaimer: This video is for your information only. The author or publisher does not guarantee the accuracy of the content presented in this video. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Background Music: "The Place Inside" by Silent Partner (royalty-free) from YouTube Audio Library. This video uses material/images from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercontinent, which is released under Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ . This video is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ . To reuse/adapt the content in your own work, you must comply with the license terms.