Talk:Supercontinent

Mu

If it actually existed shouldn't Mu be included on this list,or at least mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.12.116.137 (talk • contribs)

Mu was unfortunately obsoleted by plate tectonics, and didn't actually exist. Also, it was hypothesized as a regular continent, not a supercontinent, since supercontinents as described here require plate tectonics to form. Darekun 01:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Inconsistency

The first paragraph says "The assembly of cratons and accreted terranes that form Eurasia[1] qualifies as a supercontinent today", and further down we read "Some historians call the combined land mass of Africa and Eurasia the supercontinent Africa-Eurasia, but it is not a geological supercontinent". Is Eurasia counted as a supercontinent by geologists, or is it not? It can't be both, y'know. :-) Dr Zak 01:43, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

The greatest inconsistency in the whole list is;

• What is a supercontinent? Apparently, looking at this list, any major orogenic or rifting event brackets a "supercontinent". This is basically model driven terminology, because the authors appear to suggest that plate ectonics cannot exist without forming or destroying a supercontinent. There is no consistent standard expressed as to what constitutes a supercontinent except "something kludged together".

The second greatest are;

• The Komaii formation. Its not a supercontinent, its a single lava event.
• The Yilgarn Craton. In fact, most of these are "cratons" not superconinents. Or protocratons. Of course, there's a reason for this; most >500Ma rocks are in cratons. Making the leap to say that these rocks, in most cases metamorphosed, are produced on supercontinents is a different kettle of fish.

Rolinator 11:48, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, the Komatii Formation and Yilgarn Craton don't seem to belong on this list. Unless someone objects I'll remove them in a few days.

Cephal-odd 22:45, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Ur

in the opening paragraph the article states you have to fit specific conditions to be called a supercontinent, but then under Ur it says that one could argue it was a supercontinent (presuably because it was big for its time?) which is inconsistent. Perhaps it should be shuffled down to the notes section...

List of supercontinents

Do we need a separate List of supercontinents article when most of the same lists appear in this one? We should either merge the articles or remove the lists here to the other article. Cephal-odd 16:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Computer Simulation of the History of Earth Formation

It would be nice to have a computer simulation of the history of supercontinents. I have seen a few maps and simulation, but they are incomplete. I would like to see one that shows the increase in size of our Earth over time through accretion of mass, and can be revolved to show the globe from all sizes at any time in history. Maybe a job for Google Earth?--Robert van der Hoff 04:39, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

List of Supercontinents and definition

As far as I am aware, the only supercontinents were Rodinia, Pannotia, Pangaea and to a lesser extent, Gondwana and Laurasia. Labelling Oceania a 'supercontinent' is wrong, it is just a standard continent.

A good explanation of supercontinents which I agree with is in the Sci-Tech Encyclopedia:

The six major continents today are Africa, Antarctica, Australia, Eurasia, North America, and South America. Prior to the formation of the Atlantic, Indian, and Southern ocean basins over the past 180 million years by the process known as sea-floor spreading, the continents were assembled in one supercontinent called Pangea (literally “all Earth”). Pangea came together by the collision, about 300 million years ago (Ma), of two smaller masses of continental rock, Laurasia and Gondwanaland. Laurasia comprised the combined continents of ancient North America (known as Laurentia), Europe, and Asia. Africa, Antarctica, Australia, India, and South America made up Gondwanaland (this name comes from a region in southern India). The term “supercontinent” is also applied to Laurasia and Gondwanaland; hence it is used in referring to a continental mass significantly bigger than any of today's continents. A supercontinent may therefore incorporate almost all of the Earth's continental rocks, as did Pangea, but that is not implied by the word.

Laurasia, Gondwanaland, and Pangea are the earliest supercontinental entities whose former existence can be proven. Evidence of older rifted continental margins, for example surrounding Laurentia and on the Pacific margins of South America, Antarctica, and Australia, point to the existence of older supercontinents. The hypothetical Rodinia (literally “the mother of all continents”) may have existed 800–1000 Ma, and Pannotia (meaning “the all-southern supercontinent”) fleetingly around 550 Ma. Both are believed to have included most of the Earth's continental material. There may have been still earlier supercontinents, because large-scale continents, at least the size of southern Africa or Western Australia, existed as early as 2500 Ma at the end of Archean times.

The amalgamation and fragmentation of supercontinents are the largest-scale manifestation of tectonic forces within the Earth. The cause of such events is highly controversial.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ear4rgjb (talk • contribs) 09:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Cut the list, redundant w/ List of supercontinents Vsmith (talk) 12:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Article is in Wikiproject Geology; I'm copy-and-pasting the comments from there to here

I want to increase the chances that someone will either agree with me or tell me not to combine the three articles.

Supercontinents - this article needs urgent attention because some of the definitions are wrong and the list of supercontinents is wrong. I have added some useful info in the discussion section of the article under 'List of Supercontinents and definition' —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ear4rgjb (talk • contribs) 2009

I will work on this article. I have some notes from my work on the Rove Formation and Vaalbara; on my user pages I am working on the Algoman/Kenoran Orogeny and I just moved the Saganagan Orgeny to my user page because of conflicting information. Anyway, I do have some notes and I am interested. Bettymnz4 (talk) 20:50, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I did start by adding the information I had from my visit to libraries a couple of weeks ago. I was thinking the next logical step would be to list the supercontinents, and then saw there was a Wikipedia article "List of supercontinents", with a notice on top that no references are cited. The information I used was essentially for the supercontinent cyling process; there is an existing Wikipedia article " Supercontinent cyle" with a notice that it has no inline citations. All three of these articles need work. I believe that all three should be combined. If no one objects by next Saturday (3/27/10) I will go ahead to integrate the three into one article "Supercontinents". I probably will omit SOME of the material on 'Effect on sea level' (particularly the mathematical equations). Bettymnz4 (talk) 04:37, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm - I'm poking around the internet some, looking for a list of supercontinents (because I think the Wikipedia article has more listed than I thought there were). Anyway the Wikipedia article seems to be copy-and-pasted from http://statemaster.com/encyclopedia/List-of-supercontinents with the section of Possible Future Subcontinents deleted.Bettymnz4 (talk) 04:56, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that all 3 articles need to be combined into one. However I think the "so-called" list of supercontinents needs to be culled. Unfortunately I have very little experience of Pre-Cambrian geology so I can't offer my opinion here. However, given that we are at a stage in history where the breakup of the continents is finishing and new continents are colliding i.e. Africa and Eurasia, there should be NO present day supercontinents in the list. You could put down Afro-Eurasia as a possible future supercontinet perhaps? I've also regone over some old references and cannot find any decent definitions of supercontinent (even in Glossary of Geology (5th Ed.) by Klaus K.E. Neuendorf, James P. Jr Mehl, and Julia A. Jackson 2005). Therefore I propose using the definition I posted on here a year ago from the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology (see above post) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ear4rgjb (talk • contribs) 23:40, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

The Statemaster article is a copy of the Wikipedia article - scroll down to the bottom of the Statemaster page to see the licence information. DuncanHill (talk) 23:45, 23 March 2010 (UTC)