The Continent of Gondwana

 

Gondwana or Gondwanaland was a composite continent,
made up of South America, Africa, Antarctica, India, and Australia,
and even at one time included Florida and part of southwest Europe.


Gondwanaland is named after the Upper Paleozoic and Mesozoic formations of the Gondwana district of central India, which display a number of shared geologic features, the "Gondwana beds". On comparative geological evidence, that the continents of Africa, South America, Australia and India were once part of a single supercontinent, which was called "Gondwanaland". Science tells us that the Continents of Australia, India, South America, Africa, and Antarctica, existed together as a separate landmass as long 650 million years ago.

And as these continents only began to break up some 130 million years ago, this great supercontinent had a life of around 520 million years; making it perhaps the most important geological structure of the last billion years. A reconstruction of the Earth as it was 530 million years ago. And among the continents, Gondwana, stands over the rest in the same way that the "world-island" of Europe and Asia does today

A Long Time Ago

At the end of the Jurassic Age Gondwanaland began to break up and, during the Tertiary Age approximately 20 million years ago, Antarctica completely broke away from South America. Due to its isolation, an ocean current formed around the continent, fed by conductive motions caused by water masses of different temperatures, favored by cyclonic type atmospheric circulation , and influenced by the Earth's rotation.

The breaking up of Gondwanaland, the dispersion of the various continental blocks, the drifting of the Antarctic continent towards polar latitudes and its isolation, are all relatively recent events by the scale of geological time.

The geographical situation of Antarctica, in an isolated polar position and covered with ice, is the consequence of a long and complex geological evolution, which is still taking place and which, at least in part, should be understood and reconstructed. Up until the Jurassic Age 140 million years ago, Antarctica formed part of the supercontinent of Gondwanaland, In the Jurassic Age 140 million years ago, Antarctica formed part of the supercontinent of Gondwanaland, which also included Africa, Arabia, India, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand and South America, and occupied temperate latitudes.

Modern day landmass were created from the break upof the ancient
super continenet of Gondwanaland,some 130 million years ago.
Earth's continents


 

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