Palaeogeography:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/439468/paleogeography

The ancient geography of Earth’s surface. Earth’s geography is constantly changing:

continents move as a result of plate tectonic interactions; mountain ranges are thrust up
and erode; and sea levels rise and fall as the volume of the ocean basins change. These
geographic changes can be traced through the study of the rock and fossil record, and
data can be used to create paleogeographic maps, which illustrate how the continents
have moved and how the past locations of mountains, lowlands, shallow seas, and deep
ocean basins have changed.

The study of paleogeography has two principal goals. The first is to map the past
positions of the continents and ocean basins, and the second is to illustrate Earth’s
changing geographic features through time.

Mapping past continents and oceans

The past positions of the continents can be determined by using six major lines of
evidence: paleomagnetism, linear magnetic anomalies, hot-spot tracks,
paleobiogeography, paleoclimatology, and geologic and tectonic history.

Mapping past continents and oceans » Paleomagnetism

By measuring the remanent magnetic field often preserved in rocks containing iron-
bearing minerals, paleomagnetic analysis can determine whether a rock was
magnetized near one of Earth’s poles or near the Equator. Iron-bearing minerals forming
in igneous rock align themselves with Earth’s magnetic field as the molten rock cools.
These minerals also align themselves when they are deposited in sediments, and they
retain their orientation as they lithify into sedimentary rock. Lines of force in Earth’s
magnetic field are parallel to the planet’s surface at the Equator and are vertical at the
poles. Therefore, iron-bearing minerals formed or deposited at low latitudes will be
nearly parallel to Earth’s surface, while those at high latitudes will dip steeply. If the
rocks are later transported by tectonic processes, their original latitude of deposition can
be determined by their orientation. Paleomagnetism provides direct evidence of a
continent’s past north-south (latitudinal) position, but it does not constrain its east-west
(longitudinal) position.

Mapping past continents and oceans » Linear magnetic anomalies

Earth’s magnetic field has another important property. Like the Sun’s magnetic field,
Earth’s magnetic field periodically “flips,” or reverses polarity—that is, the North and
South poles switch places. Fluctuations, or anomalies in the intensity of the magnetic
field, occur at the boundaries between normally magnetized sea floor and sea floor
magnetized in the reversed direction. The age of these magnetic anomalies can be
established by using fossil evidence and radiometric age determinations. Because these
magnetic anomalies form at oceanic ridges, they tend to be long, linear features (hence
the name linear magnetic anomalies) that are symmetrically disposed about ridge axes.
The past positions of the continents during the last 150 million years (the maximum age
of most of the ocean floor) can be directly reconstructed by superimposing linear
magnetic anomalies of the same age, in effect “undoing” the results of sea-floor
spreading since that time.

Mapping past continents and oceans » Hot-spot tracks

Some of the world’s volcanoes are formed by jets of molten rock that
arise at the boundary between Earth’s core and mantle (at a depth of about 2,900 km, or
1,800 miles). These rising plumes, or hot spots, puncture the lithosphere, and, as a
tectonic plate moves across the hot spot, a line of islands is generated. The island
directly above the hot spot is the youngest, and islands become progressively older with
distance from the hot spot. There are more than a dozen well-documented hot-spot
tracks. Perhaps the most obvious is the Hawaiian Islands, which trace an east-west arc
across the central Pacific Ocean. Hot-spot tracks accurately record plate motions and
can be used to determine the past latitudinal and longitudinal position of the continents.

Mapping past continents and oceans » Paleobiogeography

The past distribution of plants and animals can give important clues about the latitudinal
position of the continents as well as their relative positions. Cold-water faunas can often
be distinguished from warm-water faunas, and ancient floras reflect both
paleotemperature and paleorainfall. The diversity of plants and animals tends to
increase toward the Equator, and the adaptations of plants (such as smooth-edged
leaves in the tropics and serrated-edged leaves in the temperate belts) are often good
indicators of the amount of ancient rainfall.

The similarity or dissimilarity of faunas and floras on different continents can also be
used to estimate their geographic proximity. In addition, the evolutionary history of
groups of plants and animals on different continents can reveal when these continents
were connected or isolated from each other. For example, Australia’s unique marsupial
fauna is the result of its isolation from the other continents at the time when placental
mammals were evolving on the other continents during the early Paleogene Period.

Mapping past continents and oceans » Paleoclimatology

Earth’s climate is primarily a result of the redistribution of the Sun’s energy across the
surface of the globe. It is warm near the Equator and cool near the poles. Wetness or
rainfall also varies systematically from the Equator to the pole in alternating bands. It is
wet near the Equator, dry in the subtropics, wet in the temperate belts, and dry near the
poles. Certain kinds of rocks form under specific climatic conditions. For example, coals
occur where wet climates once supported lush vegetation; bauxite (the principal ore of
aluminum) is formed in warm and wet conditions, evaporites and calcretes require
warmth and aridity to form; and tillites are deposited during the movement of glacial ice.
The ancient distribution of these and other rock types can indicate how the global
climate has changed through time and how the continents have traveled across the
climatic belts.
Mapping past continents and oceans » Geologic and tectonic history

In order to reconstruct the past positions of the continents, it is necessary to understand

the evolution of plate tectonic boundaries. Only by understanding the regional geologic
and tectonic history of an area can the location and timing of rifting events, subduction
activity, continental collision, and other major plate tectonic events be determined.

Mapping past geographic features

Paleogeographic features include mountain ranges, lowlands, shallow seas, and the
deep ocean basins. Some paleogeographic features change very slowly and are easy to
map. Others change very rapidly, so that any paleogeographic mapping is, at best, an
approximation.

Mapping past geographic features » Continents and ocean basins

The two major paleogeographic features are the continents and the ocean basins. Since
early Precambrian time, Earth has been divided into deep ocean basins (average depth,
3.5 km, or 2.2 miles) and high-standing continents (average elevation, about 800 metres,
or 2,600 feet). Continental lithosphere stands high above the ocean basins because it is
less dense and is not easily subducted, or recycled back into Earth’s interior.
Consequently, continents are made up of very old rocks, some dating back over 4 billion
years. The amount of continental lithosphere has probably changed very little during the
last 2.6 billion years—possibly increasing 10 to 15 percent. What has changed is the
shape and the distribution of continents across the globe.

The ocean basins are also ancient paleogeographic features. Oceanic lithosphere is
continuously created at oceanic ridges and then recycled back into Earth’s interior at
subduction zones.

Mapping past geographic features » Mountain ranges

In contrast to the continents and ocean basins, which are permanent geographic
features, the height and location of mountain belts constantly change. Mountain belts
form either where oceanic lithosphere is subducted beneath the margin of a continent,
giving rise to a linear range of mountains such as the Andes of western South America,
or where continents collide, forming high mountains and broad plateaus such as the
Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau of Asia. Less-extensive mountains can also form
when continents rift apart (as is happening today in the East African Rift) or where hot
spots form volcanic uplifts.

In most cases, mountain ranges take tens of millions of years to form and, depending on
the climate, may last for hundreds of millions of years. Though the Appalachian
Mountains of the eastern United States were formed more than 300 million years ago, as
a result of the collision of North America and western Africa, remnants of this collisional
mountain belt still reach heights of over than 2,000 metres (6,600 feet). The Himalayan
mountains, the world’s tallest mountain range, began to rise from the sea nearly 50
million years ago when northern India collided with Eurasia.
Mapping past geographic features » Shorelines and continental margins

In contrast to mountain ranges, which take tens to hundreds of millions of years to uplift
and erode, the location of Earth’s shorelines can change rapidly. The familiar shapes
that characterize today’s shorelines such as Hudson’s Bay, the Florida peninsula, or the
numerous fiords of Norway are all less than 12,000 years old. The shape of the modern
coastlines is the result of a rise in sea level of 70 metres (230 feet) that took place in the
last 12,000 years as the last great ice sheet that covered much of North America and
Europe melted.

It is important to note that the shoreline, though the edge of land, is not the edge of the
continent. In most cases the continent extends seaward hundreds of kilometres beyond
the shoreline. The actual edge of the continent in most cases is marked by the transition
from the continental slope to the continental rise. This steep bathymetric gradient marks
the boundary between continental and oceanic crust.

Agents of paleogeographic change

The ancient distribution of land and sea, probably the single most important aspect of
paleogeography, is a function of both continental topography and sea-level change.
Though topography changes slowly (over tens of millions of years), global sea level can
change rapidly (over tens of thousand of years). When sea level rises, the continents are
flooded and shorelines move landward. Throughout much of Earth’s history, sea level
was higher than it is today, and vast areas of the continents were flooded by shallow
seas.

Several factors can affect sea-level change. One factor is the amount of ice on the
continents. At times when the continents are covered by great ice sheets, sea level is
low, and the continents are more exposed. The last glacial maximum was 18,000 years
ago. Other important global episodes of glaciation occurred 300 million, 450 million, and
650 million years ago. The oldest known glacial episode occurred in the Precambrian,
approximately 2.2 billion years ago. For the last 20 million years, the continents and their
margins have been largely high and dry because there has been a significant amount of
ice on Antarctica and there has been extensive mountain-building in Asia.

Sea level also changes more slowly (over tens of millions of years) owing to changes in
the volume of the ocean basins. During the Precambrian, gases escaped from Earth’s
interior and contributed to the formation of water vapour in the atmosphere. The vapour
eventually condensed on the cooling surface to form the world’s oceans. However, there
has been no significant addition to the volume of water on Earth since early Precambrian
times. Changes in sea level, therefore, are due not to changes in the amount of water on
Earth but rather to changes in the shape and volume of the ocean basins. Plate
tectonics and, in particular, sea-floor spreading control the shape and volume of the
ocean basins.

Christopher R. Scotese