Continents known since ancient times. What parts of the world and continents were known to ancient Greek scientists? What are lost continents

The first to notice this mysterious geographical phenomenon was the British philosopher Francis Bacon. His observations, however, without any comments, were published back in 1620, in the work "New Organon". A few decades later, in 1658, Plas, an abbot and scholar, advanced the theory that the New World had long ago been one with the Old. Their separation occurred as a result of a natural disaster, called the "Flood." The European scientific world agreed with this hypothesis.

Two centuries later, Sin der Pellegrini from Italy made the first attempt to reconstruct the former appearance of the Earth. According to his map, America and Africa are connected and form one continent.

The German meteorologist Wegener brought together all the hypotheses with data and outlined the idea of continental drift in 1915. The publication of his treatise "The Origin of the Continents and Oceans" was preceded by a five-year rigorous study of data collected by paleontologists, geographers and geologists. They allowed him to come to the conclusion that once in ancient times our planet had only one continent and only one ocean. The first was named by the scientist Pangea, the second - Panthalassa (in Greek "pan" means common, "Gaia" - earth, "thalassa" - ocean, sea). Wegener believed that between 250 and 200 million years ago, the rotation of the Earth tore apart a single continent into fragments, which, under the influence of further rotation of the planet, spread to the places that are characteristic of them today.

The scientific community of that time considered Wegener's hypothesis to be anti-scientific nonsense. The German failed to name the reasons for the drift of the continents and accurately determine the nature of the driving forces. In addition, the movement of the continents itself was not recorded, so that, as the opponents of the scientist considered, Wegener had absolutely no evidence base. Wanting to find confirmation of his theory, the German in 1930 equipped an expedition to Greenland. Unfortunately, during the study, he died.

Laurasia and Gondwana

Four decades later, the oceanographic assembly in Tokyo officially recognized the theory of continental drift. Later studies even made it possible to more accurately name the date of the split of Pangea: 225 million years ago. At first there were only two fragments: formed Laurasia, the northern supercontinent, and gondwana- southern. She tore apart the common ocean, which was divided into the Pacific and Tethys. The first exists to this day, the second disappeared from the face of the Earth 6-7 million years ago. Only the seas remained from it: the Mediterranean, the Black with the Azov, the Caspian and the almost dried-up Aral Sea. The subsequent fragmentation of the continents continued for about a hundred million years. The face of the earth has changed many times. And there is confirmed evidence that some of the planet's continents have been lost.

In my opinion, the ancient Greek scientists made a huge contribution to the development of science and the world in general. Much of what we know from school or university was discovered or invented during the time of the ancient Greeks. But what about the scientists themselves of that time? Were they, for example, known to all parts of the world?

Hellas

This word was called Ancient Greece, which was a civilization of antiquity and was located in the southeastern part of Europe. The heyday of the Greeks falls in the 5th-4th centuries before the advent of our era (classical period). Location area Ancient Greece:

west of Asia Minor;
islands in the Aegean;
Balkan Peninsula;
south of Italy;
Black Sea region;
Sicily.

Why, nevertheless, the name "hellas"? The fact is that the Greeks themselves called the country that way, and the modern name was already received from the Roman Empire.

Science in Ancient Greece

To answer the question of what parts of the world could be known to the scientists of those times, it is worth analyzing what the science of Greece was in general, and who were its representatives. The epicenter of all scientific discoveries and research was in Athens. Not for nothing in the fifth century BC. e. in this city there were no people who were not literate (among the free inhabitants). Education in Athens was at the highest level, children studied grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic, etc. The main representatives of science in Greece were Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Archimedes, Hippocrates and others. I think that almost all of these names are familiar. They have hundreds of discoveries in both physics and medicine.

What lands were known to scientists from Greece

Despite such a number of representatives of science and a huge part of the discoveries that belong to the people of Ancient Greece, they did not know all the continents and parts of the world on the planet. According to them, there were only three:

Asia;
Europe;
North Africa.

For the most part, this is due to the geographical position of Greece relative to other lands. As you can see, all the continents known to them were in close proximity to their territory.

Location of ancient continents and continents, climate conditions and faunal zoning

In the Cambrian period (570 - 500 million years ago), the distribution of land on the Earth's surface was different than at present.

On the site of North America and Greenland, there was the mainland Laurentia. South of Laurentia stretched the Brazilian mainland. The African continent included Africa, Madagascar and Arabia.

North of it was the Russian mainland, corresponding on the Russian platform within the boundaries - the Danube Delta, the Dniester, the Vistula, the Norwegian Sea, the Barents Sea, the Pechora, Ufa, Belaya Rivers, the north of the Caspian Sea, the Volga Delta, the north of the Black Sea. The center of the platform is the city of Vladimir in the interfluve of the Oka and Volga. On the Russian platform, Cambrian deposits are distributed almost everywhere in its northern part, and are also known in the western parts of modern Belarus and Ukraine.

To the east of the Russian mainland was the Siberian mainland - Angarida, including the Siberian platform and adjacent mountain structures. On the site of modern China was the Chinese mainland, in the south of it - the Australian mainland, covering the territory of modern India and Western Australia.

At the beginning of the Paleozoic (Ordovician period, 500 - 440 million years ago) in the Northern Hemisphere, a single continent of Laurasia was formed from the ancient platforms - Russian, Siberian, Chinese and North American.

Hindustan (the island of Madagascar, the Hindustan Peninsula, south of the Himalayas), African (without the Atlas Mountains), South American (east of the Andes), the Antarctic platform, as well as Arabia and Australia (west of the mountain ranges of its eastern part) entered the southern mainland - Gondwana.

Laurasia was separated from Gondwana by the sea (geosyncline) Tethys (Central Mediterranean, Mesogea), which passed in the Mesozoic era along the zone of Alpine folding: in Europe - the Alps, Pyrenees, Andalusian Mountains, Apennines, Carpathians, Dinaric Mountains, Stara Planina, Crimean Mountains, mountains Caucasus; in North Africa - the northern part of the Atlas Mountains; in Asia - the Pontic Mountains and the Taurus, the Turkmen-Khorasan Mountains, Elbrus and Zagros, the Suleiman Mountains, the Himalayas, the fold chains of Burma, Indonesia, Kamchatka, the Japanese and Philippine Islands; in North America - the folded ridges of the Pacific coast of Alaska and California; in South America - the Andes; archipelagos framing Australia from the east, including islands New Guinea and New Zealand. The territory covered by Alpine folding retains high tectonic activity in the modern era, which is expressed in an intensely dissected relief, high seismicity, and ongoing volcanic activity in many places. A relic of Pratethys are the modern Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas.

Laurasia existed until the middle of the Mesozoic, and its changes consisted in the loss of the territories of North America and the subsequent reorganization of Laurasia into Eurasia.

The skeleton of modern Eurasia is fused from fragments of several ancient continents. In the center is the Russian continent. In the northwest, it adjoins the eastern part of the former Laurentia, which, after the Cenozoic subsidence in the Atlantic Ocean, separated from North America and formed the European ledge of Eurasia, located west of the Russian platform. In the north-east - Angarida, which in the late Paleozoic was articulated with the Russian continent by the folded structure of the Urals. In the south, the northeastern parts of the disintegrated Gondwana (the Arabian and Indian platforms) joined Eurasia.

The collapse of Gondwana began in the Mesozoic, Gondwana was literally pulled apart piece by piece. By the end of the Cretaceous - the beginning of the Paleogene periods, the modern post-Gondwanan continents and their parts - South America, Africa (without the Atlas Mountains), Arabia, Australia, Antarctica - separated.

Tectonics.

The ancient East European platform includes two basement protrusions on the surface - the Baltic Shield and the Ukrainian crystalline massif - and the vast Russian Plate, where the basement is submerged and covered by a sedimentary cover. Archean (the oldest geological era identified in the geochronology of the Earth - the beginning of 3.500 million years - the end of 2.500 - 2.700 million years ago) and subsequent Lower and Middle Proterozoic strata participate in the structure of the basement. Archean rocks form numerous massifs. The depth of the foundation on the Russian Plate varies from several hundred meters (on uplifts) to several thousand meters (in depressions). The largest uplifts are the Voronezh, Belorussian and Volga-Ural anteclises. Among the depressions, the Moscow, Baltic, and Caspian syneclises stand out. The rocks that fill the syneclises range in age from the Vendian to the Cenozoic and form the upper stage of the structures of the Russian Plate. The largest syneclise, the Moscow one, separates the protrusion of the Baltic Shield basement in the north from the Voronezh and Volga-Ural anteclises in the south and southeast. In its axial part, Triassic and Jurassic rocks are developed, on the wings - Permian and Carboniferous. The foundation in its central part is submerged to a depth of 3–4 km.

The Siberian platform has an ancient, predominantly Archean basement. The Siberian platform, in contrast to the East European one, at the end of the Proterozoic and the beginning of the Paleozoic was an area of general subsidence and almost universal accumulation of marine sediments. In the second half of the Paleozoic, in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, it was relatively uplifted and mainly continental deposits accumulated on it. The Siberian platform is distinguished by a high degree of tectonic activity.

The Mediterranean belt is located to the southwest and south of the East European Platform. The outer zone of the belt (the Scythian plate, the southern part of the Turan plate, the Tajik depression and the northern Pamirs) is a young platform. The Tajik depression and the Northern Pamirs in the Neogene - Anthropogen were covered by orogeny, as a result of which the Mesozoic and Cenozoic deposits of the platform cover were crumpled into folds here. The Scythian plate, which includes the plain territories of the Crimea and Ciscaucasia, has a basement, in which blocks of Upper Proterozoic rocks are distinguished. The platform cover ubiquitously includes Cretaceous to Anthropogenic deposits. The southern part of the Turan plate has a basement consisting of a number of Precambrian massifs - the Central Karakum, Kara-Bogaz, North Afghan, etc. The cover of the plate as a whole is formed by a series of deposits from the Jurassic to the Anthropogenic. The thickest cover is developed in the southeast in the Murghab and Amudarya depressions.

The inner zone of the Mediterranean belt (Carpathians, Mountain Crimea, Caucasus, Kopetdag, Middle and Southern Pamirs) is distinguished by the fact that the Mesozoic and Cenozoic deposits in it are represented by the geosynclinal type of formations.

The ancient Archean platforms Russian and Siberian are stable throughout their existence, starting from the earliest geological time. This creates a secure environment for existence. different forms life, and also creates conditions for their long-term progressive formation and development, not interrupted by geological cataclysms. Under such conditions, organisms that develop within ancient platforms acquire a marked advantage over others that develop on young and tectonically active parts of the earth's crust.

Naturally, evolution prefers more stable conditions of existence.

Climatic data on the state of the Earth at that historical time also reveal to us additional possibilities for knowledge that interests us.

In the terminal Riphean (680 - 570 million years ago), large expanses of Europe and North America were covered by extensive Lapland glaciation. Glacial deposits of this age are known in the Urals, in the Tien Shan, on the Russian Platform (Belarus), in Scandinavia (Norway), in Greenland and the Rocky Mountains.

In the Ordovician period (500 - 440 million years ago), Australia was located near the South Pole, and northwestern Africa - in the region of the pole itself, which is confirmed by the signs of widespread glaciation imprinted in the Ordovician rocks of Africa.

In the Devonian period (from 410 million to 350 million years ago), the equator was located at an angle of 55 - 65 ° to the modern one and passed approximately through the Caucasus, the Russian platform and southern Scandinavia. The North Pole was located in the Pacific Ocean within 0 - 30 ° north latitude and 120 - 150 ° east longitude (in the region of Japan).

Therefore, on the Russian platform, the climate was equatorial - dry and hot, distinguished by a great diversity of the organic world. Part of the territory of Siberia was occupied by seas, the water temperature of which did not drop below 25 ° C. The tropical (humid) belt, at different times of the Devonian period, extended from the modern West Siberian Plain in the north to the southwestern edge of the Russian platform. Based on the paleomagnetic study of the rocks, it was established that during most of the Paleozoic, North America was also located in the equatorial zone. Fossil organisms and widespread limestones of this time testify to the predominance of warm shallow seas in the Ordovician.

On the contrary, in the territory of Gondwana the climate was subpolar. In South Africa (in the Cape Mountains) in the Table Mountain Formation, in the Congo Basin and in southern Brazil, there are glacial formations (tillites) - witnesses of a cold circumpolar climate. Extensive glaciation developed in the Proterozoic and Upper Carboniferous. In South Australia, China, Norway, South Africa, in the south of Europe, in South America, signs of Ordovician glaciation have been found within this belt. Traces of the Upper Carboniferous glaciation are known in Central and South Africa, in the south of South America, in India and Australia. Glaciations were established in the Lower Proterozoic of North America, in the Upper Riphean (Riphean - 1650 - 570 million years) of Africa and Australia, in the Vendian (680 - 570 million years ago) of Europe, Asia and North America, in the Ordovician of Africa, at the end of the Carboniferous and the beginning of the Permian on the Gondwana mainland. The organic world of this belt was distinguished by its depleted composition. In the Carboniferous and Permian periods, a peculiar flora of the temperate and cold zone developed on the Gondwana mainland, which was characterized by an abundance of glossopteris and horsetails.

In the Devonian, the northern (arid - arid) belt covered Angara (Northern Asia) and folded structures adjacent to it from the south and east dominated the continents: Angara, Kazakh, Baltic and North American.

In Colorado (part of the former Laurentia), fragments of the most primitive vertebrates, jawless (ostracoderms), were found in Ordovician sandstones.

After the end of the cycle, the geosynclinal development may be repeated, but always some part of the geosynclinal regions at the end of the next cycle turns into a young platform. In this regard, during the course of geological history, the area occupied by geosynclines (seas) decreased, while the area of platforms increased. It was the geosynclinal systems that were the place of formation and further growth of the continental crust with its granite layer.

The periodic nature of vertical movements during the tectonic cycle (mainly subsidence at the beginning and mainly uplift at the end of the cycle) each time led to corresponding changes in the surface topography, to a change in transgressions and regressions of the sea. The same periodical movements influenced the nature of the deposited sediments, as well as the climate, which experienced periodical changes. Already in the Precambrian, warm epochs were interrupted by glacial ones. In the Paleozoic, glaciation covered at times Brazil, South Africa, India and Australia. The last glaciation (in the Northern Hemisphere) was in the Anthropogene.

The position of the continents considered above is confirmed by the data of faunal zoning, according to which the land of the Earth is divided into four faunal kingdoms: Arctogea, Paleogea, Neogea, Notogea. The Antarctic land, inhabited mainly by marine animals, is not included in any of the kingdoms.

Arctogea (“northern land”) with the center of the grouping on the Russian platform also includes the Holarctic, Indo-Malayan, Ethiopian regions and occupies Eurasia (without Hindustan and Indochina), North America, North Africa (including the Sahara). The fauna of Akrtogea is characterized by a common origin. Only placental mammals live in Arctogea.

Neogea (“new land”, later in time, formed from the decay products of Gondwana) occupies South, Central America from Baja California and the southern part of the Mexican Highlands in the north to 40 ° S. sh. in the south and the islands adjacent to Central America. Placental are common.

Notogea ("southern land") occupies Australia, New Zealand and the islands of Oceania. Long-term isolation of Notogea led to the formation of a fauna rich in endemics (isolated species). The number of placental mammals is relatively small: mice, bats, canids.

Paleogea occupies mainly the tropical regions of the Eastern Hemisphere. Paleogea is characterized by groups of animals of the ancient fauna of Gondwana - its Brazilian-African continent: ostriches, lungfish, turtles, as well as proboscis, great apes, predatory, etc. .

The distribution of fauna indicated above draws our attention to a special concentration of placental mammals - within the Arctogea with its center on the Russian Plain. The first placentals are known from the Early Cretaceous (Cretaceous - 135 - 65 million years ago), whose deposits occupy vast areas on the Russian platform.

Meanwhile, placental mammals are, firstly, viviparous, and secondly, they are characterized by the highest organization and ecological and morphological diversity - the brain has highly developed cerebral hemispheres, which are connected by the corpus callosum; embryonic development proceeds with the formation of the placenta.

Man also belongs to the placental. The predominance of placentals in the territory of Arktogea gives us reliable grounds for asserting this particular area as the most probable ancestral home of man.

Once upon a time, many millions of years ago, the continents of our planet presented a completely different picture than today. What shape did they take and how long ago did they become those continents that are known to every schoolchild today?

In the Cambrian period, which was about five hundred million years ago, the picture was as follows: on the site of Greenland and all of North America, there was a completely different continent, which scientists called Lawrence. And to the south of it stood the Brazilian mainland.

The African part of the land included Arabia, Madagascar, which separated from the general whole much later, and Africa proper.

And to the north of this continent was the Russian continent, fully corresponding to the Russian platform, the one that we know today. Imagine such borders: the Danube Delta, the Vistula, then the Dniester River, the Barents and Norwegian Seas, Ufa, the Caspian, the Pechora, the Volga, the north of the Black Sea. This is what the Russian continent was like. Its center was the place where the city of Vladimir now stands, and it is located between the Volga and the Oka. It is interesting that the Cambrian deposits on the Great Russian Plain are distributed almost everywhere, mainly in the north. There are deposits of this period in the west of Ukraine and Belarus. And to the east of this continent was the Siberian continent or, as scientists call it, Angarida. It included the Siberian platform and the mountain ranges that are next to it. Where there was China, there was, respectively, the Chinese mainland, and in the south of this continent - the Australian one. And this part of the land covered not only Western Australia, but also the territory of present-day India.

During the Ordovician period, one large continent, Laurasia, emerged from the Russian, Chinese, North American and Siberian platforms. This happened somewhere at the beginning of the Paleozoic, which began about five hundred to four hundred million years ago.

And the rest of the platforms - Hindustan, African, Antarctic and South American, together with the current Australia and Arabia, united, creating the southern mainland - Gondwana. These two continents were separated by sea. The relics of that ancient sea, Pratethys, are now considered the Caspian, Black and Mediterranean Seas.

Laurasia existed until the middle of the Mesozoic, then North America separated from it and gradually Laurasia became Eurasia.

But modern Eurasia is assembled from fragments of several ancient continents at once. In the center - Russian, in the north-west - part of Laurentia (after the Cenozoic shifts in the Atlantic, it separated from North America, this is how the European part of the Eurasian continent appeared). This part lies to the west of the Great Russian Platform. Angarida is located in the northeast, at the end of the Paleozoic it joined the Russian continent, and at the place of this junction the folded Ural was formed. And in the south, the northeastern pieces of the Gondwana that had broken up forever, namely Arabia, as well as the Indian platform, “nailed down”.

And Gondwana began to diverge on the sides in the Mesozoic, and underground activity literally pulled it apart piece by piece. When the Cretaceous period ended, Antarctica, Africa (but there were no Atlas Mountains), Australia, South America and Arabia were already isolated.

The movement of the continents in ancient times

At the beginning of the XX century. Great popularity among naturalists, thanks to the works of the German geophysicist A. Wegener, received the idea of moving the continents. He spent many years on expeditions and in November 1930 (the exact date is unknown) died on the glaciers of Greenland. The scientific world was shocked by the news of the death of A. Wegener, who was in the prime of his creative powers. By this time the popularity of his idea of continental drift had reached its zenith. Many geologists and geophysicists, paleogeographers and biogeographers took them with interest, talented works began to appear in which these ideas were developed.
A. Wegener suggested that about 250 million years ago all the continents were grouped into a single giant supercontinent - Pangea. This supercontinent consisted of two parts. In the north was Laurasia, which united Eurasia (without India) and North America, and in the south - Gondwana, represented by South America, Africa, Hindustan, Australia and Antarctica.

At the beginning of the Cambrian period, approximately 550 - 540 million years ago, Gondwana was the largest continent. It was opposed in the northern hemisphere by disparate continents (North American, East European and Siberian), as well as a small number of microcontinents. Between the Siberian and East European continents, on the one hand, and Gondwana, on the other, there was the Paleo-Asian Ocean, and between the North American continent and Gondwana was the Paleo-Atlantic Ocean. In addition to them, at that distant time there was a vast oceanic space - an analogue of the modern Pacific Ocean. The end of the Ordovician, about 450 - 480 million years ago, was characterized by the convergence of the continents in the northern hemisphere. Their collisions with island arcs led to the growth of the marginal parts of the Siberian and North American land. The Paleo-Asian and Paleo-Atlantic oceans are beginning to shrink in size. After some time, a new ocean appears at this place - Paleotethys. It occupied the territory of modern Southern Mongolia, the Tien Shan, the Caucasus, Turkey, and the Balkans. A new water basin also arose on the site of the modern Ural Range. The width of the Ural Ocean exceeded 1500 km. According to paleomagnetic determinations, the South Pole at that time was located in the northwestern part of Africa.
In the first half of the Devonian period, 370 - 390 million years ago, the continents began to unite: North American with Western Europe, as a result of which a new continent, Euramerica, arose, though not for long. Modern mountain structures of the Appalachians and Scandinavia were formed due to the collision of these continents. Paleotethys has been somewhat reduced in size. In place of the Ural and Paleoasian oceans, small relict basins were preserved. The South Pole was located in the region of present-day Argentina.
Much of North America was located in the southern hemisphere. The Siberian, Chinese, Australian continents and the eastern part of Euramerica were located in tropical and equatorial latitudes.
The Early Carboniferous, approximately 320-340 million years ago, was characterized by the continuing convergence of the continents (Fig. 3). In the places of their collision, folded areas and mountain structures arose - the Urals, Tien Shan, mountain ranges of Southern Mongolia and Western China, Salair, etc. A new ocean, Paleotethys II (Paleotethys of the second generation), arises. It separated the Chinese continent from the Siberian and Kazakhstan.
In the middle of the Carboniferous period, a significant part of Gondwana was in the polar region of the southern hemisphere, which led to one of the greatest glaciations in the history of the Earth.
Late Carboniferous - the beginning of the Permian period 290 - 270 million years ago, was marked by the unification of the continents into a giant continental block - the supercontinent Pangea. It consisted of Gondwana in the south and Laurasia in the north. Only the Chinese continent was separated by the Paleotethys II ocean from Pangea.
In the second half of the Triassic period, 200 - 220 million years ago, although the location of the continents was approximately the same as at the end of the Paleozoic, changes nevertheless occurred in the outlines of the continents and oceans (Fig. 5). The Chinese continent connected with Eurasia, Paleotethys II ceased to exist.

However, almost simultaneously, a new ocean basin, the Tethys, arose and began to expand intensively. He separated Gondwana from Eurasia. Inside it, isolated microcontinents have been preserved - Indochinese Iranian, Rhodope, Transcaucasian, etc.
The emergence of a new ocean was due to the further development of the lithosphere - the collapse of Pangea and the separation of all currently known continents. At the beginning, Laurasia broke apart - in the region of the modern Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Then its individual parts began to move away from each other and thus made room for the North Atlantic.
The Late Jurassic, about 140 - 160 million years ago, is the time of the crushing of Gondwana (Fig. 6). At the site of the split, the Atlantic Ocean Basin and mid-ocean ridges arose. The Tethys Ocean continued to develop, in the north of which there was a system of island arcs. They were located on the site of the modern Lesser Caucasus, Elburz and the mountains of Afghanistan and separated the marginal seas from the ocean.
During the Late Jurassic and Cretaceous, the continents moved in a latitudinal direction. The Labrador Sea and the Bay of Biscay arose, Hindustan and Madagascar separated from Africa. A strait appeared between Africa and Madagascar. The long journey of the Hindustan Plate ended at the end of the Paleogene with a collision with Asia. Here, giant mountain structures - the Himalayas - were formed.
The Tethys Ocean began to consistently shrink and close, mainly due to the convergence of Africa and Eurasia. A chain of volcanic island arcs arose on its northern outskirts. A similar volcanic belt formed on the eastern outskirts of Asia. At the end of the Cretaceous, North America and Eurasia joined in the region of Chukotka and Alaska.
During the Cenozoic, the Tethys Ocean completely closed, the relic of which is now the Mediterranean Sea. The collision of Africa with Europe led to the formation of the Alpine-Caucasian mountain system. The continents began to gradually converge in the northern hemisphere and diverge to the sides in the southern, breaking up into separate isolated blocks and massifs.

180 years old A dividing line will appear between the northern and southern parts of Pangea. It begins to disintegrate.
150 m. years old. India, Anatarctica and Australia separate from Pangea.
100-90 m years. Separate South America and Africa. The Tethys Ocean disappears, the Atlantic Ocean appears.
70 m. years old. India "rapidly" swam to Asia.
(65 m. years. The last mass extinction happened 65 million years ago, when a meteorite probably wiped out dinosaurs (not birds) and other large reptiles, but bypassed small animals such as mammals, which then resembled shrews.")
60 m. years old. The emergence of Iceland as a result of volcanic eruptions ... And now this is a kind of zone of volcanoes, of which 20 erupted after the settlement of the country. The most characteristic sign of Iceland are the chains of craters that arose as a result of eruptions.
40 m. years old. India (twice as long as it is now) meets Eurasia. To date, the territory of the first half disappeared, along with the Himalayas. They are still rising by 1 cm per year. It is possible that this is due to the decrease in the territory of India.
The last ice age began about 40 million years ago and peaked in the Pleistocene about 3 million years ago. (That is, the entire period of the emergence of man fell on a decrease in the peak of the dednic period).
30 years old Lake Baikal appeared.
20 m. North America joined South.
Africa collided with Europe. The territory of the future Spain is approaching the territory of France. The Pyrenees are growing.
The Italian "boot", advancing along with Africa, "sticks" into Europe, forming the Alps

I have just talked about what theory about the movement of ancient continents today dominates the scientific world.
But some scientists hold a different point of view about the movement of ancient continents. They believe that the continents in ancient times moved not only in a horizontal direction (colliding and moving away from each other), but also independently rising from the bottom of the oceans and sinking to the bottom of the ocean. This process is similar to the “breathing of the Earth” (in one part of the Earth, the land rises, in another part of the Earth, the land sinks under water). I also consider this theory to be absolutely correct, while I believe that the horizontal movement of the continents (according to Wegener's theory) also occurred. For this reason, some scientists believe that Gondwana was the most ancient continent of the Earth, others consider Lemuria the most ancient continent of the Earth. True, there are some theories in which both names appear - both Gondwana and Lemuria. In modern times, there is also a theory of the existence (at the very beginning) of the first continent (the first land) - Hyperborea. It's some kind of mistake. Hyperborea, as a mainland, existed in about 30 - 12 thousand BC in the Arctic Ocean and was called Arctida. The mainland Arctida itself went under water about 12 thousand years ago, leaving behind Svalbard, Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land.
In general, the topic of the origin of ancient and modern continents on Earth is very interesting and fraught with many mysteries.

Source: co-a.com