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Laurasia (Supercontinent)


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    • found: Work cat.: Late Jurassic margin of Laurasia, 2015:t.p. (Late Jurassic margin of Laurasia)
    • found: New World Encyclopedia, viewed January 17, 2018:Laurasia (Laurasia is the name given to the largely northern supercontinent that is thought to have formed most recently during the late Mesozoic era, as part of the split of the Pangaean supercontinent. It also is believed that the same continents comprising Laurasia existed as a coherent landmass much earlier, forming after the breakup of the hypothesized supercontinent Rodinia about 1 billion years ago. The landmass of this earlier period is sometimes referred to as Proto-Laurasia to avoid confusion with the Mesozoic supercontinent. The name Laurasia combines the names of Laurentia and Eurasia. Laurasia included most of the landmasses that make up today's continents of the northern hemisphere, chiefly Laurentia (the name given to the North American craton), as well as Baltica, Siberia, Kazakhstania, and the North China and East China cratons)
    • found: Britannica.com, viewed January 17, 2018:Laurasia/Supercontinent ("Laurasia, ancient continental mass in the Northern Hemisphere that included North America, Europe, and Asia (except peninsular India). Its existence was proposed by Alexander Du Toit, a South African geologist, in Our Wandering Continents (1937). Whereas Wegener had postulated a single supercontinent, Pangea, Du Toit theorized that there were two such great landmasses: Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south, separated by an oceanic area called Tethys. Laurasia is thought to have fragmented into the present continents of North America, Europe, and Asia some 66 million to 30 million years ago, an interval that spans the end of the Cretaceous Period and much of the Paleogene Period")
    • found: Merriam-Webster online dictionary, viewed January 17, 2018:Laurasia ("Ancient supercontinent that included the currently separate landmasses of North America and Eurasia except for the Indian subcontinent -- compare Gondwana")
    • found: OED online, viewed January 17, 2018:Supercontinent ("A postulated land mass containing all of the earth's continental crust, or containing the cratons of a number of the present-day continents. Supercontinents which are thought to have existed at different geological times include: Gondwanaland, Laurasia, Pangaea, Rodinia")
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    • QE511.5
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  • Change Notes

    • 2016-07-15: new
    • 2018-04-16: revised
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