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A NEW CONTINENT ON
PLANET EARTH:
Zealandia
7 6 6 5 5 4
1. NORTH X NORTH X X
AMERICA AMERICA
EUROASIA EUROASIA
AFRO-
EUROASIA
(or Eurafrasia),
Figure 1.
Europe(If Europe and Asia i In between the African, North American, South American Formatted: Default Paragraph Font, Font: (Default)
+Body (Calibri), 12 pt
s combined this is Eurasi , Arabian, Indian and Australian plates.
a)Eurasia Formatted ...
Formatted ...
North America(If North Am In between the African, South American, Pacific and
Formatted ...
erica and South Ameri Eurasian Plates.
Formatted ...
ca are not one Continent)
Formatted ...
South America(If North Am In between the Nazcan, Antarctic, African and North Formatted ...
erica and South Americ American plates.
Formatted ...
a are not one Continent)
Formatted ...
Arabia In between the African, Eurasian and Indian plates. Formatted ...
Formatted ...
India In between the Arabian, African, Eurasian and Australian
plates. Formatted ...
Formatted ...
Zealandia In between the Australian and the Pacific plates.
Formatted ...
Australia In between the Indian, Pacific, Antarctic, African and Formatted ...
Eurasian plates. Formatted ...
Formatted ...
Figure 2.
Formatted ...
Formatted ...
Figure 3.
The plates link together and move apart creating new continents. Around 270-million years
ago, there was a super-continent called Pangea. In a period of Geological Time on earth,
called The Jurassic which is part of the Mesozoic era, Pangea broke up into smaller pieces. It
broke into two super-continents called Gondwana (sometimes called Gondwanaland) and
Laurasia. Laurasia was in the north and Gondwana in the south.
The Geological Time Scale (GTS) is a system used by Earth Scientists, for example, geologists
and palaeontologists, to describe the timing and relationships of events that have occurred
during Earth's history. Therefore, it gives us a window into Planet Earth’s history. Please see
Figure 4. for illustration. After the Mesozoic Era, in the early Cenozoic Era, the Earth changed
to be how it is today.
Figure 5.
The layers of the Earth have four layers and they are the crust, the mantle, the inner core
and the outer core. Please see Figure 6. for illustration.
Figure 6.
The top layer of the earth is what is called the crust. There are two types of crust, which are
the oceanic and continental crust. Continental crust is the land and about 10-70km deep,
The mantle is made out of two layers, which are the lower mantle and the upper mantle.
The upper mantle is solid and is around 5-300 km deep. The combination of the upper
mantle and the crust is called the lithosphere. The lower mantle is liquid and is T
sometimes called the asthenosphere. It is around 300-700km deep. h
i
The outer core is liquid and around 700-1700 km deep. This is so hot that the pressure s
cannot turn it into a solid. The inner core is hotter than the outer core but the pressure of i
the other layers above it makes it impossible for the inner core to be liquid, consequently, s
the inner core is solid.
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