Did the earth existed before Pangaea formed?

Question

Did the earth existed before Pangaea formed?

Answer 1

yes there was pieces of Land spreed on all the continents and when the plate mantel began to move together this movement brought the land masses together, known as Pangaea

Answer 2

of course. pangea just explains the way the land looked. all the continents were connected. thats all. don't listen to sonny B. that answer is way off. my dad ia geologist, i know first hand.

Answer 3

if your not sure go to ask google.com or ask jeeves.com

Answer 4

Yes

Answer 5

Yup. Long long before.

Without going into the WHOLE process. The simple version is: There was a giant ocean that dissolved everything that tried to form, until granite began to form. (There's a piece of that original granite in Africa). Granite was much harder to dissolve and eventually formed Pangaea. Pangaea was broken up by plate movement.

Alright, Volcano, you disagree, here....

A Dynamic Stratigraphy of the British Isles talks briefly about early crust. It says that on an early basaltic crust, formation and subsequent sinking of large volcanoes would have taken place, and any lighter acidic material would accumulate at the surface until a thin and possibly continuous granitic crust formed. As the crust thickened and subduction began, the material began to accrete into the first continents. It also suggests that during the Archaean, direct accretion from the mantle may have played a more significant role in continent building than lateral accretion along sibduction zones.

.................

Rodinia, which formed 1.3 billion years ago during the Proterozoic, was the supercontinent from which all subsequent continents, sub or super, derived. Rodinia does not preclude the possibility of prior supercontinents as the breakup and formation of supercontinents appears to be cyclical through Earth's 4.6 billion years.

Gondwana followed with several iterations before the formation of Pangaea, which succeeded Pannotia, before the beginning of the Paleozoic Era (545 Ma) and the Phanerozoic Eon.

The minor supercontinent of Proto-Laurasia drifted away from Gondwana and moved across the Panthalassic Ocean. A new ocean was forming between the two continents, the Proto-Tethys Ocean. Soon, Proto-Laurasia drifted apart itself to create Laurentia, Siberia and Baltica. The rifting also spawned two new oceans, the Iapetus and Khanty Oceans. Baltica remained east of Laurentia, and Siberia sat northeast of Laurentia.

In the Cambrian the independent continent of Laurentia on what would become North America sat on the equator, with three bordering oceans: the Panthalassic Ocean to the north and west, the Iapetus Ocean to the south and the Khanty Ocean to the east. In the Earliest Ordovician, the microcontinent of Avalonia, a landmass that would become the northeastern United States, Nova Scotia and England, broke free from Gondwana and began its journey to Laurentia.[3]



Euramerica's formation

Appalachian orogenyBaltica collided with Laurentia by the end of the Ordovician, and northern Avalonia collided with Baltica and Laurentia. Laurentia, Baltica and Avalonia formed to create a minor supercontinent of Euramerica or Laurussia, closing the Iapetus Ocean, while the Rheic Ocean expanded in the southern coast of Avalonia. The collision also resulted in the formation of the northern Appalachians. Siberia sat near Euramerica, with the Khanty Ocean between the two continents. While all this was happening, Gondwana drifted slowly towards the South Pole. This was the first step of the formation of Pangaea.[4]

The second step in the formation of Pangaea was the collision of Gondwana with Euramerica. By Silurian time, Baltica had already collided with Laurentia to form Euramerica. Avalonia hadn't collided with Laurentia yet, and a seaway between them, a remnant of the Iapetus Ocean, was still shrinking as Avalonia slowly inched towards Laurentia.

Meanwhile, southern Europe fragmented from Gondwana and started to head towards Euramerica across the newly formed Rheic Ocean and collided with southern Baltica in the Devonian, though this microcontinent was an underwater plate. The Iapetus Ocean's sister ocean, the Khanty Ocean, was also shrinking as an island arc from Siberia collided with eastern Baltica (now part of Euramerica). Behind this island arc was a new ocean, the Ural Ocean.

By late Silurian time, North and South China rifted away from Gondwana and started to head northward across the shrinking Proto-Tethys Ocean, and on its southern end the new Paleo-Tethys Ocean was opening. In the Devonian Period, Gondwana itself headed towards Euramerica, which caused the Rheic Ocean to shrink.

In the Early Carboniferous, northwest Africa had touched the southeastern coast of Euramerica, creating the southern portion of the Appalachian Mountains, and the Meseta Mountains. South America moved northward to southern Euramerica, while the eastern portion of Gondwana (India, Antarctica and Australia) headed towards the South Pole from the equator.

North China and South China were on independent continents. The Kazakhstania microcontinent had collided with Siberia (Siberia had been a separate continent for millions of years since the deformation of the supercontinent Pannotia) in the Middle Carboniferous.

Western Kazakhstania collided with Baltica in the Late Carboniferous, closing the Ural Ocean between them, and the western Proto-Tethys in them (Uralian orogeny), causing the formation of the Ural Mountains, and the formation of the supercontinent of Laurasia. This was the last step of the formation of Pangaea.

Meanwhile, South America had collided with southern Laurentia, closing the Rheic Ocean, and forming the southernmost part of the Appalachians and Ouachita Mountains. By this time, Gondwana was positioned near the South Pole, and glaciers were forming in Antarctica, India, Australia, southern Africa and South America. The North China block collided with Siberia by Late Carboniferous time, completely closing the Proto-Tethys Ocean.

By Early Permian time, the Cimmerian plate rifted away from Gondwana and headed towards Laurasia, with a new ocean forming in its southern end, the Tethys Ocean, and the closure of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean. Most of the landmasses were all in one. By the Triassic Period, Pangaea rotated a little, in a southwest direction. The Cimmerian plate was still travelling across the shrinking Paleo-Tethys, until the Middle Jurassic time. The Paleo-Tethys had closed from west to east, creating the Cimmerian Orogeny. Pangaea looked like a C, with an ocean inside the C, the new Tethys Ocean. Pangaea had rifted by the Middle Jurassic, and its deformation is explained below.