Supercontinent
Definition
- 1: a hypothetical former large continent from which other continents are held to have broken off and drifted away
Description
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 (1999) 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 (Gondwanaland) 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 (2004), 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 200 Ma, continental positions are much less certain.[1]
