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South China (continent)

 
South China (continent)

 
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South China (continent)
 
 
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South China continent, also known as South China craton (or the South Chinese craton), or as Yangtze craton, was an ancient continent
Continent

A continent is one of several large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents ? they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia ....
 (craton
Craton

A craton is an old and stable part of the continental crust that has survived the merging and splitting of continents and supercontinents for at least 500 million years....
) that contained today's South
South China

South China or Southern China can refer to* South China Athletic Association - a sports club in Hong Kong First Division League* South China ...
 and Southeast China (named after), Indochina
Indochina

Indochina, or the Indochinese Peninsula, is a subregion in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly east of India, south of China.The word has French origins, Indochine, and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory to bordering countries....
, and parts of Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India and north of Australia....
 (ie. Borneo
Borneo

Borneo is the List of islands by area and is located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Administratively, this island is divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei....
 and adjacent islands). South China had been part of many past supercontinents, including Rodinia
Rodinia

In geology, Rodinia is the name of a supercontinent, a continent which contained most or all of Earth's landmass. According to plate tectonic reconstructions, Rodinia existed between 1100 and 750 million years ago, in the Neoproterozoic era ....
, Pannotia
Pannotia

Pannotia, first described by Ian W. D. Dalziel in 1997, is a hypothetical supercontinent that existed from the Pan-African orogeny about 600 million years ago to the end of the Precambrian about 540 million years ago....
, Gondwana
Gondwana

Gondwana , originally Gondwanaland is the name given to a southern precursor-supercontinent and then as a remnant separated from Laurasia 180- during the breakup of the Pangaea supercontinent that existed about 500 to 200 Annum ago into two large segments., Pangaea
Pangaea

Pangaea, Pang?a or Pangea was the supercontinent that existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras about 250 million years ago, before the component continents were separated into their current configuration....
, Laurasia
Laurasia

Laurasia was a supercontinent that most recently existed as a part of the split of the Pangaean supercontinent in the late Mesozoic era . It included most of the landmasses which make up today's continents of the northern hemisphere, chiefly Laurentia , Baltica, Siberia , Kazakhstania, and the North China Craton and East China Craton craton...
 and Eurasia
Eurasia

Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 53,990,000 km? or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface . Often considered a single continent, Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia, concepts which date back to classical antiquity and the borders for which are somewhat arbitrary....
.

About a billion years ago (Late Proterozoic), the supercontinent, Rodinia formed.






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South China continent, also known as South China craton (or the South Chinese craton), or as Yangtze craton, was an ancient continent
Continent

A continent is one of several large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents ? they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia ....
 (craton
Craton

A craton is an old and stable part of the continental crust that has survived the merging and splitting of continents and supercontinents for at least 500 million years....
) that contained today's South
South China

South China or Southern China can refer to* South China Athletic Association - a sports club in Hong Kong First Division League* South China ...
 and Southeast China (named after), Indochina
Indochina

Indochina, or the Indochinese Peninsula, is a subregion in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly east of India, south of China.The word has French origins, Indochine, and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory to bordering countries....
, and parts of Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India and north of Australia....
 (ie. Borneo
Borneo

Borneo is the List of islands by area and is located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Administratively, this island is divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei....
 and adjacent islands). South China had been part of many past supercontinents, including Rodinia
Rodinia

In geology, Rodinia is the name of a supercontinent, a continent which contained most or all of Earth's landmass. According to plate tectonic reconstructions, Rodinia existed between 1100 and 750 million years ago, in the Neoproterozoic era ....
, Pannotia
Pannotia

Pannotia, first described by Ian W. D. Dalziel in 1997, is a hypothetical supercontinent that existed from the Pan-African orogeny about 600 million years ago to the end of the Precambrian about 540 million years ago....
, Gondwana
Gondwana

Gondwana , originally Gondwanaland is the name given to a southern precursor-supercontinent and then as a remnant separated from Laurasia 180- during the breakup of the Pangaea supercontinent that existed about 500 to 200 Annum ago into two large segments., Pangaea
Pangaea

Pangaea, Pang?a or Pangea was the supercontinent that existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras about 250 million years ago, before the component continents were separated into their current configuration....
, Laurasia
Laurasia

Laurasia was a supercontinent that most recently existed as a part of the split of the Pangaean supercontinent in the late Mesozoic era . It included most of the landmasses which make up today's continents of the northern hemisphere, chiefly Laurentia , Baltica, Siberia , Kazakhstania, and the North China Craton and East China Craton craton...
 and Eurasia
Eurasia

Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 53,990,000 km? or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface . Often considered a single continent, Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia, concepts which date back to classical antiquity and the borders for which are somewhat arbitrary....
.

About a billion years ago (Late Proterozoic), the supercontinent, Rodinia formed. South China was part of the supercontinent. South China was bordered by Mirovia
Mirovia

Mirovia was an hypothesized paleo-ocean which may have been a global ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Rodinia in the Neoproterozoic Era, about 1 billion to 750 million years ago....
 Ocean to the north, Siberia
Siberia (continent)

Siberia is the craton located in the heart of the region of Siberia. Siberia or "Angaraland" is today the Central Siberian Plateau. It is an extremely ancient craton that formed an independent continent before the Permian...
 to the east, Australia
Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
 to the west and Laurentia
Laurentia

Laurentia , like all craton land, was created as continents moved about the surface of the Earth , bumping into other continents and drifting away....
 to the south as shown here in the Rodinia paleogeography. 750 million years ago, Rodinia rifted and South China became an isolated continent.

A hundred million years later, these fragmented pieces of continent assembled back together to create the supercontinent of Pannotia
Pannotia

Pannotia, first described by Ian W. D. Dalziel in 1997, is a hypothetical supercontinent that existed from the Pan-African orogeny about 600 million years ago to the end of the Precambrian about 540 million years ago....
. South China collided North China and Eastern Gondwana
Gondwana

Gondwana , originally Gondwanaland is the name given to a southern precursor-supercontinent and then as a remnant separated from Laurasia 180- during the breakup of the Pangaea supercontinent that existed about 500 to 200 Annum ago into two large segments. (mainly Australia
Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
). When Pannotia disintegrated 550 million years ago, South China (and North China) became part of and remained with Eastern Gondwana for millions of years. Late in the Silurian
Silurian

The Silurian is a geologic period that extends from the end of the Ordovician period, about 443.7 ? 1.5 annum , to the beginning of the Devonian period, about 416.0 ? 2.8 Mya ....
 (175 million years later after Pannotia's disintegration), South China (and North China), rifted away from Gondwana and moved across the ancient, shrinking Proto-Tethys Ocean
Proto-Tethys Ocean

The Proto-Tethys Ocean was an ancient ocean that existed from the latest Ediacaran to the Carboniferous . It was an ocean predecessor of the later Paleo-Tethys Ocean....
. A new ocean was forming in its southern end, Paleo-Tethys Ocean
Paleo-Tethys Ocean

The Paleo-Tethys Ocean was an ancient Paleozoic ocean. It was located between the paleocontinent Gondwana and the so called Hunic terranes. These are divided into the European Hunic and Asiatic Hunic ....
. By the Late Carboniferous
Carboniferous

The Carboniferous is a geologic period that extends from the end of the Devonian period, about 359.2 ? 2.5 annum , to the beginning of the Permian period, about 299.0 ? 0.8 Ma ...
 (300 million years ago), while North China collided with Siberia and Kazakhstania
Kazakhstania

Kazakhstania, also known as the Kazakhstan Block, is a small continental region in the interior of Asia. It consists of that area north and east of the Aral Sea, south of the Siberian craton and west of the Altai Mountains and Lake Balkhash....
, completely closing the Proto-Tethys, South China became an independent continent. For much of the Permian Period, South China remained in the tropical latitudes. And also, while most of the giant lycopods of the Carboniferous disappeared, giant lycopods remained in South China, since its isolation from the now formed Pangaea. Cimmeria
Cimmeria

* Cimmerians, an ancient people who lived in the south of modern-day Ukraine and Russia in the 8th and 7th century BC* Cimmeria, an ancient name of the Crimea, a peninsula in the North part of Black Sea, or the Eastern part thereof...
, a microcontinent that consisted of today's Tibet
Tibet

Tibet is a Tibetan Plateau in Asia, north of the Himalayas, and the home to the indigenous Tibetan people and its related ethnic groups. With an average elevation of 4,900 metres , it is the highest region on Earth and has in recent decades increasingly been referred to as the "Roof of the World"....
, Iran
Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and formerly known internationally as Persian Empire until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea....
, Turkey
Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....
 and parts of Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India and north of Australia....
 rifted away from Gondwana (just as North and South China did earlier), and was heading towards Laurasia. Paleo-Tethys Ocean started to shrink, while the new Tethys Ocean
Tethys Ocean

The Tethys Ocean was an ocean that existed between the continents of Gondwana and Laurasia during the Mesozoic era before the opening of the Indian Ocean....
 expanded. In the Middle Triassic
Middle Triassic

The Middle Triassic is the second of three epoch s of the Triassic geological timescale. It spans the time between 245 ? 1.5 annum and 228 ? 2 Ma . The Middle Triassic is divided into the Anisian and Ladinian faunal stages....
, the eastern portion of Cimmeria collided with South China, and together moved northwards, towards Laurasia
Laurasia

Laurasia was a supercontinent that most recently existed as a part of the split of the Pangaean supercontinent in the late Mesozoic era . It included most of the landmasses which make up today's continents of the northern hemisphere, chiefly Laurentia , Baltica, Siberia , Kazakhstania, and the North China Craton and East China Craton craton...
. In the Early Jurassic
Jurassic

The Jurassic is a geologic period that extends from about annum to  Ma, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous....
 epoch, South China collided with North China, forming the China we know today. Since then North China, and South China had been together since their collision in the Jurassic. Much of South China became a mountain range
Mountain range

A mountain range is a chain of mountains bordered by highlands or separated from other mountains by mountain pass or valleys. Individual mountains within the same mountain range do not necessarily have the same geology, though they often do; they may be a mix of different orogeny, for example volcanoes, uplifted mountains or Fold mountains...
 because of India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
's collision with Cimmeria's southern coastline.

See also

  • Pangaea
    Pangaea

    Pangaea, Pang?a or Pangea was the supercontinent that existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras about 250 million years ago, before the component continents were separated into their current configuration....
  • North China (continent)