Laurasia
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Related to Laurasia: Panthalassa
Laurasia
(lôrāzh`ə): see continental driftcontinental drift,geological theory that the relative positions of the continents on the earth's surface have changed considerably through geologic time. Though first proposed by American geologist Frank Bursley Taylor in a lecture in 1908, the first detailed theory of
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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 It might be outdated or ideologically biased.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.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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