Pannotia
Pannotia, also Vendia or large Gondwana, is a hypothetical late - neoproterozoischer supercontinent. He probably existed briefly 600-540 mya by the collision of several continental blocks with a very large land mass, while other continental blocks were already conceived again in replacement of this land mass.
200 million years after the collapse Rodinias united the three fragments
- Proto - Laurasia,
- The Kraton Congo and
- Proto - Gondwana ( the rest of Gondwana except Atlantica )
Again to a super-continent. The world's climate was, as now, in a so-called icehouse phase. The distribution of the land masses of the two hemispheres was, however, from today's perspective, " upside down ". Australia, parts of Africa, Antarctica, the present-day Arabian Peninsula and India were in the tropics, and were therefore free of ice or covered by a shelf sea. The two major Chinese cratons extended into the temperate northern latitudes and were partially glaciated. The rest of the land mass was located in the temperate and polar latitudes in the southern hemisphere and was of a vast ice sheet or ice shelf of masses covered.
At the end of its relatively short existence Pannotia was divided into four continents:
Around 300 mya - another 250 million years later - was forming the so far last supercontinent Pangaea.
Links, sources
English:
- Pannotia at paleos.com
- Pannotia at Berkeley
- Geological history of the Precambrian
- The " Ice House " at scotese.com
- Continent of the earth's