Laurasia

one of the two ancient supercontinents produced by the first split of the even larger supercontinent Pangaea about 200 million years ago, comprising what are now North America, Greenland, Europe, and Asia (excluding India)

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Laurasia

[lȯ′rā·zhə]

(geology)

A continent theorized to have existed in the Northern Hemisphere; supposedly it broke up to form the present northern continents about the end of the Pennsylvanian period.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Laurasia

(from “Laurentian Shield,” the former name of the Canadian Shield, and “Asia”), the ancient continent that included the North American, Eastern European, and Siberian platforms, and possibly the Chinese-Korean and South Chinese platforms as well as the Caledonian and Hercynian folded structures located between them. The unification of the North American and Eastern European platforms into a single land mass occurred at the beginning of the Devonian across the area now occupied by the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean. The other parts of Laurasia became joined together by the end of the Paleozoic. The breakup of Laurasia and the formation of the basin of the North Atlantic began in the middle of the Mesozoic.

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References in periodicals archive

ART: Have students research plate tectonics and learn about Pangaea, Gondwana, and Laurasia, as well as the current movement of Earth's plates.

Fossil finds: a fossil find offers clues about ancient Earth's geography

Geobotanists think the origin of the ginseng plant goes back tens of millions of years, to when the Northern Hemisphere's paleocontinent Laurasia broke apart to form northern Asia and North America, thereby separating what had once been a single ecological zone.

An enduring panacea: a lucrative export for nearly three centuries, American ginseng--like its Asian cousin-continues to be a popular herbal remedy for a wide range of ailments

La primera fractura dio origen a dos supercontinentes, uno denominado Laurasia y el otro Gondwana, separados por el mar de Thetys.

Noventa y cuatro anos de la teoria de la deriva Continental de alfred lothar wegener

It will take you back millions of years from the time about 500m years ago when Britain was further south of the Equator than it is north of it now, to the carboniferous period 327-300m years ago when the rocks of the Pennines (coal measures, millstone grit and carboniferous limestone) were formed, with Britain on the edge of the huge Laurasia continent and near the Equator on its long voyage north.

When Castle Hill was beneath the sea

The Moldanubian Zone is a part of the Variscan orogenic belt, which resulted from the collision of Laurasia and Gondwana, and several small microplates between these, in the Devonian to Carboniferous times (Matte 1986).

Geochemical constraints of origin and evolution of migmatites in the central part of the Moldanubian Zone (Temelin area), Bohemian Massif

Look straight ahead to the footpath sign next to Laurasia House and follow the path through a kissing gate into a meadow.

WEEKEND: COUNTRY WALKS: Panoramic views are a rich reward; Wardington to Edgcote 3 miles. Map 206 Explorer

After the repeated fragmentation of continents, Laurasia and Gondwana, the different continents and islands separated, and their floras and faunas evolved independently.

The temperate and subtropical evergreen broadleaf forests and similar forests

BY THIS time the Earth's continents Laurasia and Gondwana were on the move and a new sea was gradually forming between them.

Dinosaurs Magazine: The flying saucerus

The world before our world - the land called Pangaea - has started to break up and two distinct land masses, Laurasia to the north and Gondwana to the south, are taking shape.

PICK OF THE BOX; The secret life of dinosaurs