- Also spelled:
- palaeogeography
- Key People:
- Charles Schuchert
- Related Topics:
- geography
- history
- paleobiogeography
Paleogeographic features include mountain ranges, lowlands, shallow seas, and the deep ocean basins. Some paleogeographic features change very slowly and are easy to map. Others change very rapidly, so that any paleogeographic mapping is, at best, an approximation.
Continents and ocean basins
The two major paleogeographic features are the continents and the ocean basins. Since early Precambrian time, Earth has been divided into deep ocean basins (average depth, 3.5 km, or 2.2 miles) and high-standing continents (average elevation, about 800 metres, or 2,600 feet). Continental lithosphere stands high above the ocean basins because it is less dense and is not easily subducted, or recycled back into Earth’s interior. Consequently, continents are made up of very old rocks, some dating back over 4 billion years. The amount of continental lithosphere has probably changed very little during the last 2.6 billion years—possibly increasing 10 to 15 percent. What has changed is the shape and the distribution of continents across the globe.
The ocean basins are also ancient paleogeographic features. Oceanic lithosphere is continuously created at oceanic ridges and then recycled back into Earth’s interior at subduction zones.
Mountain ranges
In contrast to the continents and ocean basins, which are permanent geographic features, the height and location of mountain belts constantly change. Mountain belts form either where oceanic lithosphere is subducted beneath the margin of a continent, giving rise to a linear range of mountains such as the Andes of western South America, or where continents collide, forming high mountains and broad plateaus such as the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau of Asia. Less-extensive mountains can also form when continents rift apart (as is happening today in the East African Rift) or where hot spots form volcanic uplifts.
In most cases, mountain ranges take tens of millions of years to form and, depending on the climate, may last for hundreds of millions of years. Though the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States were formed more than 300 million years ago, as a result of the collision of North America and western Africa, remnants of this collisional mountain belt still reach heights of over than 2,000 metres (6,600 feet). The Himalayan mountains, the world’s tallest mountain range, began to rise from the sea nearly 50 million years ago when northern India collided with Eurasia.
Shorelines and continental margins
In contrast to mountain ranges, which take tens to hundreds of millions of years to uplift and erode, the location of Earth’s shorelines can change rapidly. The familiar shapes that characterize today’s shorelines such as Hudson’s Bay, the Florida peninsula, or the numerous fiords of Norway are all less than 12,000 years old. The shape of the modern coastlines is the result of a rise in sea level of 70 metres (230 feet) that took place in the last 12,000 years as the last great ice sheet that covered much of North America and Europe melted.
It is important to note that the shoreline, though the edge of land, is not the edge of the continent. In most cases the continent extends seaward hundreds of kilometres beyond the shoreline. The actual edge of the continent in most cases is marked by the transition from the continental slope to the continental rise. This steep bathymetric gradient marks the boundary between continental and oceanic crust.
Agents of paleogeographic change
The ancient distribution of land and sea, probably the single most important aspect of paleogeography, is a function of both continental topography and sea-level change. Though topography changes slowly (over tens of millions of years), global sea level can change rapidly (over tens of thousand of years). When sea level rises, the continents are flooded and shorelines move landward. Throughout much of Earth’s history, sea level was higher than it is today, and vast areas of the continents were flooded by shallow seas.
Several factors can affect sea-level change. One factor is the amount of ice on the continents. At times when the continents are covered by great ice sheets, sea level is low, and the continents are more exposed. The last glacial maximum was 18,000 years ago. Other important global episodes of glaciation occurred 300 million, 450 million, and 650 million years ago. The oldest known glacial episode occurred in the Precambrian, approximately 2.2 billion years ago. For the last 20 million years, the continents and their margins have been largely high and dry because there has been a significant amount of ice on Antarctica and there has been extensive mountain-building in Asia.
Sea level also changes more slowly (over tens of millions of years) owing to changes in the volume of the ocean basins. During the Precambrian, gases escaped from Earth’s interior and contributed to the formation of water vapour in the atmosphere. The vapour eventually condensed on the cooling surface to form the world’s oceans. However, there has been no significant addition to the volume of water on Earth since early Precambrian times. Changes in sea level, therefore, are due not to changes in the amount of water on Earth but rather to changes in the shape and volume of the ocean basins. Plate tectonics and, in particular, sea-floor spreading control the shape and volume of the ocean basins.
Christopher R. Scotese