(no subject)
Pangaea begins to break up at ~180-175Ma, with the largest pulse of seafloor spreading starting at ~120Ma. (South Atlantic Ocean begins to open at ~110Ma)
It seems that a number of interesting but disparate events occur roughly around the 30Ma mark, including: opening of the Red Sea (~30Ma), the Himalayas start to rise (~25Ma), the final gasps of the Tethyan ocean (and consequences thereof - final end at ~18Ma), the Kula plate is destroyed and the Pacific plate changes it direction of movement (~40Ma), the Rio Grande rift begins to form (~30Ma), Australia-New Guinea begins counterclockwise rotation (~25Ma)
Rogers and Santosh state that maximum packing is achieved at 250Ma, that Pangea begins to disperse at 200Ma, and suggest that the continents will continue to drift apart for a further 50-100 million years. Continents are clearly still drifting apart, but no mention of rate of change is mentioned, so i view this as tentative according to my own models, which at current time would suggest another ~90Ma of remaining apart, with perhaps the appearance of drifting apart while in actuality a kind of spatial stasis in the large term is retained (continued drift resulting in re-arrangement but not actual spreading considered in the absolute global sense) as the rate of drift, reaching a maximum around now, slowly slows, decreasing rapidly around 60million years from now until actual contraction is established around 90 million years from now.
It seems that a number of interesting but disparate events occur roughly around the 30Ma mark, including: opening of the Red Sea (~30Ma), the Himalayas start to rise (~25Ma), the final gasps of the Tethyan ocean (and consequences thereof - final end at ~18Ma), the Kula plate is destroyed and the Pacific plate changes it direction of movement (~40Ma), the Rio Grande rift begins to form (~30Ma), Australia-New Guinea begins counterclockwise rotation (~25Ma)
Rogers and Santosh state that maximum packing is achieved at 250Ma, that Pangea begins to disperse at 200Ma, and suggest that the continents will continue to drift apart for a further 50-100 million years. Continents are clearly still drifting apart, but no mention of rate of change is mentioned, so i view this as tentative according to my own models, which at current time would suggest another ~90Ma of remaining apart, with perhaps the appearance of drifting apart while in actuality a kind of spatial stasis in the large term is retained (continued drift resulting in re-arrangement but not actual spreading considered in the absolute global sense) as the rate of drift, reaching a maximum around now, slowly slows, decreasing rapidly around 60million years from now until actual contraction is established around 90 million years from now.