• jaaake@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    Every time I see Pangea, I have the same thought. Before I say it, I should preface that I know nothing about plate tectonics or geology or planetary physics or any other related science.

    Are we sure that’s how it was? I mean the whole one continent and the rest of the globe is ocean. Is there a chance that in addition to the super continent, the planet was also way smaller? Like maybe that continent wrapped around the majority of a smaller sphere instead of just one clump on one side of the current size of the sphere.

    • xia@lemmy.ca
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      2 hours ago

      What should we call the mysterious continant on the dark side of pangea? It should evoke an aire of mystery.

      • jaaake@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        Not trolling, just ignorant on most related sciences.

        Honestly, that much continental drift (Pangea to modern geography) seems so unbelievable to me. For some reason it’s easier to wrap my head around the globe expanding from a roughly Pangea sized sphere and the cracks between the continental shelves filling with water as the sphere got bigger.

        I feel like to someone who is familiar with this science, this probably sounds like me saying “Yeah, but a flat earth just makes more sense.”

        • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net
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          47 minutes ago

          Yeah it does sound like that lmao

          If the world were to get, say, twice as big, that would require a lot of matter, like smacking into an equally sized protoplanet. Your first problem is, such a collision would impart a lot of energy and turn the earth into a smoking mass of lava and volcanoes like it was when it formed. But the second problem is: How would the continents all be the same shape, and only the low-lying water regions have expanded? This would imply all the new matter went down inside the sphere of the current continents.

  • alpine_jim@piefed.social
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    5 hours ago

    Iceland shouldn’t be on this, it didn’t exist until ~20 million years ago. Pangaea broke up ~200 million years ago.

    Probably lots of others, like most of Japan shouldn’t be labelled either.

    • OwOarchist@pawb.social
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      8 hours ago

      Yeah. Just a single vast expanse of ocean that makes the modern-day Pacific look small and cramped. Just think how lonely it would be in a boat on the other side of the earth…

      Oh, and the hurricanes will be absolutely gargantuan sometimes, having such a large ocean to strengthen over before finally hitting land.

  • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net
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    9 hours ago

    Today: Nothing but ocean in front of the US west coast.

    Back then: Nothing but ocean in front of the US west coast.

    • DarkSirrush@piefed.ca
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      7 hours ago

      I’m actually pretty sure the west coast wouldn’t exist, didn’t the Rockies get formed by the pacific plate hitting the North American plate while pangea was unforming?