What is the relationship of the masses of ice to the formation of continent?

Question

What is the relationship of the masses of ice to the formation of continent?

Answer 1

The supercontinent cycle describes the quasi-periodic aggregration and dispersal of Earth's continental crust. There are varying opinions as to whether Earth's budget of continental crust is increasing, decreasing, or remaining about constant, but it is agreed that this inventory is constantly being reconfigured. Continental collision makes fewer and larger continents while rifting makes more and smaller continents. The last supercontinent, Pangaea, formed about 300 million years ago. The previous supercontinent, Pannotia or Greater Gondwanaland, formed about 600 million years ago, and its dispersal formed the fragments that ultimately collided to form Pangaea. But beyond this the time span between supercontinents becomes more irregular. For example, the supercontinent before Gondwanaland, Rodinia, existed ~1.1 billion to ~750 million years ago - a mere 150 million years before Gondwanaland. The supercontinent before this was Columbia: ~1.8 to 1.5 billion years ago. And before this was Kenorland: ~2.7 to ~2.1 billion years ago. Ur existed ~3 billion years ago and Vaalbara ~3.6 to ~2.8 billion years ago. One complete Supercontinent cycle is said to take 300 to 500 million years to occur.

The hypothetical supercontinent cycle is, in some ways, the complement to the Wilson cycle. The latter is named after plate tectonics pioneer J. Tuzo Wilson and describes the periodic opening and closing of ocean basins. Because the oldest seafloor is only 170 million years old, whereas the oldest bit of continental crust goes back to 4 billion years or more, it makes sense to emphasize the much longer record of the planetary pulse that is recorded in the continents.