Latest image of Pangea utterly fascinating

a reply to: shlaw

It will be owned by dinosaurs again, because mankind will have extinguished ourselves. The more things change...

SR1TX:

Likely the force of a giant impact at some point.

There was certainly an impact of some form of energy wave, in what possible form I would not like to hazard a guess. It would have to be such that it was able to split 30 mile thick crust for thousands of miles in all directions. However, a thought has occurred to me, the energy wave would have had to have come from underneath the crust, a cometary or asteroid impact would not be as wide-ranging in its impact throughout Pangea's crust. Of course an extraterrestrial impact would cause wide-ranging atmospheric impact.

In the millions of years it took the Indian landmass to travel the thousands of miles across the ocean to collide with the Eurasian plate, would have seen quite a few occurrences of ice ages, some would have been severe and others not so severe, but during the severe ones, ice would have slowed India's progress. I just cannot envisage an energy mechanism by which india split from Pangea and march northwards towards the Eurasian plate. The concept is just too simplistic, presenting with too much self-evidency.

a reply to: smkymcnugget420
no sphere its a flat earth and they would be all rolled in to more of a circle.

originally posted by: elysiumfire
darepairman:

With me I try to imagine the pull apart and flow of it all.

I promise you that I am not simply being a contrarian, but I am rather sceptical regarding Pangea and the break up of the continents. Bear with me, and I'll try and articulate my scepticism.

The artists impression is rather too specific for my liking, but let us assume that Pangea was as the artist depicts it. I am sure most of you are quite aware of the theory of the tectonic movement of the earth's crust? Over the years I have read of, and seen, a number of wonderful documentaries regarding the subject.

Some time ago I watched a documentary on the subject of how the Himalayas formed, specifically why Everest was so high. The theory is that when Pangea broke up, India separated and moved north-eastwards at around 10 inches a year, and over the millions of years it eventually collided with the Eurasian plate. My question is...how was the Indian landmass able to do this? What earthly dynamics drove it all the thousands of miles across the vast ocean to have it finally collide with the Eurasian plate?

Think of the colossal forces involved that drove the North and South American continents westwards, separating them from what became the Western coast of Africa, creating the Atlantic ocean.

The Australian and New Zealand landmasses separated to go South East towards where they currently are, yet the Indian landmass was driven north eastwards. All these land masses piggybacked atop of the tectonic plates, but there is no evidence of tectonic movement that would account for the current positions of the land masses after they broke apart from Pangea.

Obviously, the question to ask, and evidence that needs to be looked for is the cataclysm that broke up Pangea in the first place? Something is certainly not right with the theory?

Underneath the crust of the Earth, there are convection currents that run through the mantle, some rising, some falling. The heat comes from the core, which itself seems to be formed from two layers with different magnetic polarizations, which may have been formed from two proto-planets colliding and merging. Molten rock is moving through the mantle like an extremely slow spherical lava lamp:

www.colorado.edu...
www.colorado.edu...

These are moving at a slow rate, around 5mm/year, but that's 1 meter/20 years, 1km/20,000 years, 1000km/20 million years. Since the crust is anchored deep into the mantle with cratons (300km blocks of igneous rock), there is plate tectonic movement.

www.newgeology.us...

From the link above, it looks like major earthquakes caused the original single island to start to break apart. There were some geology books that stated that the UK broke apart from mainland Europe, and Ireland split apart from the UK landmass.

Pangea is easily imagined when you take into consideration the Earth was a 1/4 of its current mass. The land mass wraps around nicely to form a smaller sphere, the question is did our planets mass increase slowly over time or very quickly with the addition of a planet collision between Earth and Mars ?

stormcell

Underneath the crust of the Earth, there are convection currents that run through the mantle, some rising, some falling.

Yes, I am quite aware of that, but I'm sure you are able to realise that the convection currents are not following each other linearly, but occurring randomly and chaotically. There will be no one direction travel for the plates. The Indian landmass somehow eventually collided with the Eurasian plate after wandering chaotically, not in some organised linear motion. It would be nice to accept the thought that there was a vast line of convection currents whose thermal rise and fall snaked the Indian landmass to its current position, but I just don't buy it

These are moving at a slow rate, around 5mm/year, but that's 1 meter/20 years, 1km/20,000 years, 1000km/20 million years.

Surely, 5mm a year only gives 100mm in 20 years? Moving at 5mm a year would require 50 years to travel 1000mm (1 metre)?

originally posted by: elysiumfire
SR1TX:

Likely the force of a giant impact at some point.

There was certainly an impact of some form of energy wave, in what possible form I would not like to hazard a guess. It would have to be such that it was able to split 30 mile thick crust for thousands of miles in all directions. However, a thought has occurred to me, the energy wave would have had to have come from underneath the crust, a cometary or asteroid impact would not be as wide-ranging in its impact throughout Pangea's crust. Of course an extraterrestrial impact would cause wide-ranging atmospheric impact.

In the millions of years it took the Indian landmass to travel the thousands of miles across the ocean to collide with the Eurasian plate, would have seen quite a few occurrences of ice ages, some would have been severe and others not so severe, but during the severe ones, ice would have slowed India's progress. I just cannot envisage an energy mechanism by which india split from Pangea and march northwards towards the Eurasian plate. The concept is just too simplistic, presenting with too much self-evidency.

Good points. Just to be clear, I'm not defending the theory with the
following, just making an uneducated observation.

I would think that the overall mass of the core and the surrounding
molten rock, being in motion, would exert a considerable force.
Much like how being in a swimming pool doesn't seem all that
remarkable, but if bobbing in the ocean, it's sheer power by mass
alone becomes readily apparent.

Applying this to the whole Earth makes it (somewhat) easier to
visualize how the crust could be more malleable than the solid
rock we stand on would suggest.

Also, I have not seen anything that suggests the crust travelled
in any way but chaotic. Pangea was ripped apart and sent on
it's merry way, never to be the same way again.

Or, what I just said is a bunch of crap.
I can live with either.

I agree that continents move around. Thats fact. However pangaea is not fact. Its not even very good speculation imo. How can it possibly make sense that every crustal bit above sea level on the entire planet just happened to be smushed together in one place?

BALDERDASH

Also, POPPYCOCK AND HORNSWAGGLE

#FakeNews

More garbage science.

Total nonsense, just look at it and it's totally obvious how ridiculous that "theory" is.

a reply to: shlaw

If you turn the image on its side it kind looks like austrailia.

What factors keep deep inside of the earth molten?

originally posted by: shlaw
Whelp, my mind is completely blown.
This artists latest world map of Pangea (a proposed
supercontinent that existed 300 mya) has put all the
other representations to shame.

article link

Here is a smaller more vague Pangea from wikipedia

And here is the masterpiece!

To me, it doesn't even matter if it's not completely correct - still really cool!

Cheers!

Put Antartica where she belongs. And low and behold the Flat Earth.

originally posted by: carewemust
What factors keep deep inside of the earth molten?

I wouldn't think anything would keep it molten. We are simply
at a stage of the planet's evolution where it hasn't completely
cooled yet.

That brings up the age of the Earth and how long it would take
to cool completely. Here is the first thing I found googling:

The best estimate for Earth's age is based on
radiometric dating of fragments from the Canyon
Diablo iron meteorite. From the fragments, scientists
calculated the relative abundances of elements that
formed as radioactive uranium decayed over billions
of years.

...uh...what?
Guess I should have paid attention in school.