And before Pangea what?

2002/03/26 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Geologia

Pangea is, according to geologists, the name of the only continent that existed on Earth 250 million years ago. The tectonic movements provoked the fragmentation of Pangea and the progressive formation of the continents that we know today.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina have discovered the supercontinent that existed one thousand eight hundred million years before Pangea.

Columbia. The researchers come to this conclusion from the study of the rocks of India, East Africa and Saudi Arabia. According to geological and magnetic remains, eastern India was associated with the North West and southern Australia with Canada. The huge continent had a maximum length of 12.900 kilometers and a maximum width of 4.830 kilometers.

But the question does not end there. According to the researchers, a thousand five hundred million years ago, Columbia broke and began to move the parts. Five hundred million years later, the other supercontinent called Rodinia was reunited and constituted. Although this continent remained intact for 700 million years, the parts were fragmented and moved, finally, 250 million years ago, until it was grouped and formed by Pangea.