Pangaea, the Supercontinent

[Vektor]

Pangaea or Pangea was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from earlier continental units approximately 300 million years ago, and it began to break apart about 175 million years ago. In contrast to the present Earth and its distribution of continental mass, much of Pangaea was in the southern hemisphere and surrounded by a super ocean, Panthalassa. Pangaea was the last supercontinent to have existed and the first to be reconstructed by geologists.

IS there any proof that this supercontinent ever existed? It just seems so...mythical.

[Althena]

I would have given anything to fish those ancient oceans in those times

[lunaflare]

There must be a map somewhere...

[uzn]

incomplete Theory!!! Pangea cannot have existed as they tell us. If the Landmass was only on one side, Earth would have spinned out of control very fast. It only makes sense if Earth was much smaller and the Landmass broke apart while the Earth was growing in size.

http://www.dinox.org/wpimages/wpd2acefcf.gif
see for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kL7qDeI05U

I am no scientist, but an expanding Earth sounds more likely than that Earth once looked like a giant Eyeball, yeah right ;)

[Hervé]

If the Landmass was only on one side, Earth would have spinned out of control very fast.

... unless that landmass was in a polar position...

[uzn]

Yeah, they just have to find the missing Link between penguin and human. Then it all fits again

[Bill Ryan]

If the Landmass was only on one side, Earth would have spinned out of control very fast.

No, that doesn't hold water (so to speak :) ). The depth of the oceans is relatively thinner than the skin of an apple. And water also has its own mass, though not as dense as rock (of course).

It'd not make any difference at all to the earth's center of gravity if there was ocean on one side of the planet and dry land on the other. (It doesn't make any difference where mountain ranges are, either.)

[Agape]

incomplete Theory!!! Pangea cannot have existed as they tell us. If the Landmass was only on one side, Earth would have spinned out of control very fast. It only makes sense if Earth was much smaller and the Landmass broke apart while the Earth was growing in size.

I am no scientist, but an expanding Earth sounds more likely than that Earth once looked like a giant Eyeball, yeah right ;)

It's a hypothesis . There's no proof there was a supercontinent 'pangea' and many small patches of smaller continents that later submerged and are now resting on the vast ocean bottom.
The whole hypothesis simply evolves from the 'time of the pangea' and geo-botanical evidence in rocks but moreso living nature pointing to fact that later stages of biological evolution of various modern and extinct species now spread across the continents once occurred close to each other .

It seems to be suggestive of the idea that the planets surface was once covered with 'water world' or , lots of mud better to say and it became habitable only after it froze to an ice ball for millions of years and then started to melt which enabled separation of water from solid rocks .

See Snowball Earth (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100304-snowball-earth-ice-global-warming/)

[uzn]

Everything above waterlevel (normal hight null) would be extra weight on that side. The Landmass above normal height null would count as extra weight. I think, but could be wrong.

[Agape]

Everything above waterlevel (normal hight null) would be extra weight on that side. The Landmass above normal height null would count as extra weight. I think, but could be wrong.

But , you're thinking of earth as you know it with clear separation of water from earth on the surface level . That's probably its latest version.
Before it came to be so differentiated it was full of volcanoes and shifting tectonic plates and probably far less differentiated surface .

Lots of guesstimates ..


ABSTRACT
The Neoproterozoic interval (1000-540 Ma) contains ample evidence for a series of glacial intervals. These include the 750-700 Ma Sturtian glaciation, the 625-580 Ma Marinoan-Vendian glaciation and the 600-550 Ma Sinian glaciation. Paleomagnetic evidence has suggested that many of these glaciations occurred at tropical latitudes (less-than-or-equal-to 25-degrees) and this led to a number of theories that attempt to explain the occurrence of these anomalously low latitude glaciations (e.g., an increase in the, axial tilt of the earth, an equatorial low-orbit ice-ring, rapid equator to pole continental drift, incorrect identification of impact deposits as glacial deposits or secondary magnetizations misidentified as primary). New paleomagnetic data for Laurentia, China, Baltica and parts of Gondwana are combined with a reanalysis of previously published data to demonstrate that the Neoproterozoic glaciations may well all have occurred above 25-degrees latitude. Climate models using a juvenile Sun of slightly lower luminosity, lower CO2 levels and coupling to Milankovitch cycles suggest, that ice sheets could extend to within +/- 25-degrees of the Neoproterozoic equator. Thus, the new paleomagnetic data and climate models offer an alternative explanation for the Neoproterozoic glaciations that is consistent with the waxing and waning of intermediate latitude ice sheets to form the conformable sequences of warm climate-cold climate strata.

The Neoproterozoic (1000–540 Ma) glacial intervals: No more Snowball Earth? (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248411419_The_Neoproterozoic_1000-540_Ma_glacial_intervals_No_more_Snowball_Earth [accessed May 10, 2016].

[Vektor]

Well could it maybe be that the water level had somehow expanded and flooded those ground parts , thats the reason we got as many continents as we have today. Something similar had happened in the Bosnia sector. Banja Luka , one of the largest cities of Bosnia , about 6000 years ago was a sea ... which somehow dissapeared and now is ground , populated area...

[Agape]

Well could it maybe be that the water level had somehow expanded and flooded those ground parts , thats the reason we got as many continents as we have today. Something similar had happened in the Bosnia sector. Banja Luka , one of the largest cities of Bosnia , about 6000 years ago was a sea ... which somehow dissapeared and now is ground , populated area...

Yes that's true , you can find fossils of marine animals all over the North America and Eurasia that once purportedly formed submerged continent of Leurasia covered by Thetys Sea

http://www.britannica.com/place/Tethys-Sea


At least two Tethyan seas successively occupied the area between Laurasia and Gondwana during the Mesozoic Era. The first, called the Paleo (Old) Tethys Sea, was created when all landmasses converged to form the supercontinent of Pangea about 320 million years ago, late in the Paleozoic Era. During the Permian and Triassic periods (approximately 300 to 200 million years ago), Paleo Tethys formed an eastward-opening oceanic embayment of Pangea in what is now the Mediterranean region. This ocean was eliminated when a strip of continental material (known as the Cimmerian continent) detached from northern Gondwana and rotated northward, eventually colliding with the southern margin of Laurasia during the Early Jurassic Epoch (some 180 million years ago). Evidence of the Paleo Tethys Sea is preserved in marine sediments now incorporated into mountain ranges that stretch from northern Turkey through Transcaucasia (the Caucasus and the Pamirs), northern Iran and Afghanistan, northern Tibet (Kunlun Mountains), and China and Indochina.

[Cidersomerset]

We did do a thread about this with conflicting views , it maybe of interest....


The Expanding Earth, Expanding Consciousness Theory // Neal Adams - The Growing Earth

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?84708-The-Expanding-Earth-Expanding-Consciousness-Theory-Neal-Adams-The-Growing-Earth

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5vN9VKJinq0/UBwZmzMheBI/AAAAAAAAJGY/s7Pz8exLx4o/s800/expanding_earth_pangea_proof.gif

[Hervé]

One wonders what that theory ^^^ does of all the sea creatures that have been repertoried all along from Archean times... even if only for the coelacanth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelacanth)... :silent:

[Bill Ryan]

Everything above waterlevel (normal hight null) would be extra weight on that side. The Landmass above normal height null would count as extra weight. I think, but could be wrong.

Yes, but the difference is truly negligible. It's the equivalent of having a few small stones stuck in the tread on your car tire. The wheel won't fall off because of that!

[gripreaper]

I thought Pangaea was where the Navi lived in Cameron's film "Avatar", which is a pretty good representation of the truth of our origins and evolution, at least in my opinion.

The earliest historical documents and stone carvings, which predate the absconding of our historical records and the prolific teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and the Roman government (one in the same back in the day), tell a story of several epochs, evolutions, and cultures which have come and gone, starting with Mu, Lemuria, Atlantis, the Egyptian epoch, and then the Roman culture, which buried all of those epochs prior to it and set up the religious and governmental slave system.

One would then need to take into account the 300 foot rise in sea levels from a major cataclysmic event, recorded in all of the ancient myths and legends, from a cosmic war which blew up the planet Tiamat, and left a ring of debris full of water, which rained down on earth due to a nuclear altercation between the indigenous peoples and the alien interlopers. Did this happen before or after Pangaea, or was the continental shifts all part of the same cataclysm?

Graham Hancock has done an excellent job of documenting the historical references to this increase in sea levels and the ancient artifacts which were buried underwater as a result of this cataclysm.

[seeker/reader]

incomplete Theory!!! Pangea cannot have existed as they tell us. If the Landmass was only on one side, Earth would have spinned out of control very fast. It only makes sense if Earth was much smaller and the Landmass broke apart while the Earth was growing in size.


Excuse me, but land mass is ALL over the planet. The difference is that SOME of the land mass is above water, while the MAJORITY of the land mass is below water. Typically, the land mass above water is CONTINENTAL CRUST, which is equated to GRANITE, while the land mass under the oceans is OCEANIC CRUST, which is equated to BASALT.

Continental crust is thicker, however the density of granite is less than basalt.
Oceanic crust is thinner, however the density of basalt is higher than granite.

This is why when the two meet in a collision, the oceanic crust subducts under the continental, due to basalt's higher density.

There is no missing land mass under the oceans. You just don't see it.