• When the supercontinent Pangea began to fragment around 200 million years ago during the Early Jurassic, it reshaped the face of the planet. • Vast new oceans opened, continents drifted apart and the familiar geography of today slowly emerged. • For decades, many geoscientists have suggested that this dramatic breakup was fueled by an accumulation of heat beneath the supercontinent, a kind of planetary “thermal insulation” effect that caused the underlying mantle (the thick layer of rock between Earth’s crust and its core) to grow unusually hot.
Article Summaries:
- A new study suggests that the Earth’s mantle was cooler than previously believed during the breakup of the supercontinent Pangea. Researchers argue that the dramatic rifting and opening of new oceans around 200 million years ago may not have been driven by an unusually hot mantle, as long‑held theories of “thermal insulation” had proposed. Instead, the data indicate that the mantle’s temperature was more moderate, challenging the idea that heat buildup beneath Pangea was the primary catalyst for its fragmentation. This finding could reshape models of early Earth tectonics and the thermal evolution of the planet.
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