Pangaea- Formation mechanism.

[cassiewoofer]

Since learning about pangaea at school in a geograpgy lesson I've often found myself thinking how and why would the higher land be all on one side of the planet? It has also been suggest that the moon was formed by by an impact with another body. Are these two linked?..... I can imagine an impact where all or part of the impacting body sticks to earth forming a higher region and all the water being relocated to the other side of the planet.

 Has anyone got any knowledge of how pangaea was formed?

[wxsatuser]

Pangea was most likely just one of many super continents, it was the last one.

I believe it has'nt anything to do with impacts directly.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Not a subject I know much about, but I'd guess the formation of Pangea was not directly related the giant impact. Pangea formed relatively recently in the earth's history, about 300 million years ago. It's thought that the continents have formed and broken up several times over the Earth's history. Thinking it over, it's probably a normal consequence of plate tectonics. As the plates move, there are going to be times when the landmasses are scattered and others when they are (nearly) all grouped together into a supercontinent. The arrangement of all the continents into Pangea may just have been a fluke.

Here's a hypothetical reconstruction of an earlier supercontinent - Rodinia - at about 1.1 billion years ago.

There are some more details of the theory on this wiki page. Hope that is some help.

[JulianO]

Most of the major impacts happened very early on, between 4.5 and 4 billion years ago. That's when there was lots of big debris floating around. Pangea and co. were formed much later, when there were still some big rocks floating around, but not as many or as big as early on.

[cassiewoofer]

Yeah, thanks just been reading a bit of it. It is brilliant Wiki, but eventually there'll be no scope for discussing anything any more!

This world has changed so much with the internet and google search. 

I haven't been to a library for ages, do they still have books in? or just row on row of computers?

[wxsatuser]

Yeah, thanks just been reading a bit of it. It is brilliant Wiki, but eventually there'll be no scope for discussing anything any more!

This world has changed so much with the internet and google search. 

I haven't been to a library for ages, do they still have books in? or just row on row of computers?

I believe we should ask questions and discuss things, never take things for granted.

Research is a good thing, the Net allows easy access for all of us to learn.

[symesie04]

Indeed as fantastic a source of information as the net can be it can also be a a incredible source of misinformation.