The Continental drift.

While doing research for a book, I came across Pangaea. Some of you might already know of it, but I had no idea the theory of a Supercontinent existed. Mainly because I never pondered what the earth (continent wise) looked like 250 million years ago. 

 

I more questioned things pertaining to daily life, i.e. how the first Neanderthal couple figured out the logistics of sex and then pregnancy. In my head they spend 9 months confused and freaking out until she finally pops. (Later topic of discussion.)

Refocusing, first hypothesized by Alfred Wegener, Pangaea is a single landmass (or supercontinent) that was comprised of earth’s current continents some 250 million years ago.

Due to the continental drift, an idea introduced by Abraham Ortelius and later fully developed by Alfred Wegener, Pangaea drifted apart into several pieces over millions of years thus giving us the continental configuration we know today.

My research in to Pangaea led me to its predecessor Rodinia, a bigger supercontinent. But my research into Rodinia was some what of a dead end. There isn’t much information about it, but there was enough information to get the wheels of imagination turning. 

Rodinia has since been added into my story. I gave myself a shit load of holes to fill with this one, but hey, I’m a writer and filling in the gaps is what we do.

The "Continental drift" of course became my next target. I wanted to know if we were still "drifting"?  And if we were still “drifting” would we come back together at some point? And if so, when?

After hours and days of scouring the WWW for a legitimate answer, which btw I never got, I received enough theoretical answers to satisfy my curiosity. As far as believers are concerned, we ARE still "drifting" and will eventually "drift" back into one single Supercontinent. 

I also learned that Rodinia was not the first supercontinent. 

*insert inspiration overload here*

I don’t know about the rest of you, but this was exciting news for me. There are so many things one can do with this information. Well, a fictional writer like myself anyway.

 In short: I’ve learned something new.     

FYI: The PALEOMAP Project is the go to place for continental drift visuals. They have illustrations that cover earth’s tectonic changes for the last 1100 million years. They also have some pretty nifty illustrations  of earths formation 250 million years from now.