THE WHOLE SAGA OF CONTINENT

According to the youtube video from PBS Eon Channel that was titled, “The Whole Saga of Continent,”
the study of the natural history is the study how the world has changed and what are the origins, and
how this have brought change. Basically, the world is in a constant change, which meant that the world
is changing not only the earth’s climate and adaptation, but the planet itself is changing because the
ground beneath our feet is always moving.

The places or countries around the earth was not originally at that certain position, some countries were
at the equator and some are at the south pole. This study of the change in the positions of land masses,
specifically the transformation of the earth is called “paleogeography.” Due to movements of the
continents it has caused major revolutions in earth and life’s history, such as explosions of life, and
major extinction events. Before studying how all things got here in earth, it is necessary to learn the
origin of where land comes from and how this mass of land behaves.

Alfred Wegener, the proponent of the theory that the earth was once a big supercontinent, spent years
travelling the world collecting evidences to prove his theory. His proposed theory was called “the
continental drift theory.” No one believed his theory back then because no person has ever seen the sea
floor before. In the mid 20 th century, scientists even claimed that the sea was just a giant pool. Until the
1960’s where two researchers named, Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen began studying the ocean. They
discovered that there is a so called “mid-ocean ridges” that is found all over the world’s ocean, and are
all volcanically active. These ridges were also found that, this is where the sea floor is made. This mid-
ocean volcanoes were creating the rocky material of the sea floor, called sea floor spreading.

The Sea floor spreading and the subduction, which denser sea floor dive below the less dense
continental rock, is the primary component of Plate Tectonics.

Plate Tectonics is the theory of how earth’s crust move around the surface. Wegener was correct all
along, but he never got the chance to explain this.

Super continents separate when the mantle starts to change; it’s either change in direction or
temperature. When plates separated they first creat a rift valley, when they keep drifting apart they will
form narrow sea, when this continues to spread apart, it will later form oceans. This process is called the
supercontinent cycle.

Everyone knew that the first supercontinent was Pangaea, but before Pangaea, there was Kenorland,
that existed 2.7 to 2.5 billion years ago at the end of the archeon eon. After 700 million years, kenorland
has spread apart forming another continent that is called Nuna, it existed from 1.8 to 1.4 billion years
ago in the middle of Proterozoic Eon. Nuna began to separate again, and after 100 million years,
Rodinia, which was the supercontinent that existed before Pangaea. About 900 million years ago,
Rodinia broke apart. In the Cryogenian Period, another supercontinent was formed, called Pannotia,
here the first animal was discovered in the bodies of water. While in the Ordovician period, the first
plant began to live on terrestrial place, millipedes started to crawl on land, and fossils of early insects
have been found. Toward the end of the Devonian Period, the first amphibians also came to terrestrial
land. The earliest amniotes showed up 310 million years ago, right before the formation of Pangaea.

Pangaea formed 300 million years ago. There were two parts of it, Laurasia and Gondwana. Animals
here were free to roam all over the land mass, which explains the having the similar species all over the
world. Pangaea was so huge back then it caused most inland region uninhabitable. The two mass
extinction also happened in Pangaea. There was “the Great Dying” that happened 252 million years ago,
caused by volcanic eruptions from fissures in Pangaea forming super-hot air and highly acidic rain killed
almost every living thing. After 50 million years, another mass extinction came, that wiped huge number
of mammal and crocodile relatives, and it was believe that volcanic activity has caused this. Only
dinosaurs were able to survive.

As Pangaea broke, dinosaurs became isolated and developed into different forms. After another
extinction came that was the K-PG extinction that wiped out non-avian dinosaurs, mammals have been
isolated and developed into different forms as well. These animals were in contact again after the earth
has moved.

The world is constantly moving, for about 2.5 centimeters a year in fact. And scientist are able to predict
on how the world would look like 50 years from now based on the rate of speed of the continents’
movement. This constant movement had made the scientists build on new theories like Pangaea Ultima,
Amasia, and Novopangaea.