Supercontinent and Superplate? A short-lived Pangean plate and its role
in the supercontinent cycle
Daniel Pastor-Galán
Center for Northeast Asian Studies 41 Kawauchi Aoba-ku, Sendai Miyagi, 980-8576, Japan, Center for Northeast Asian Studies 41 Kawauchi Aoba-ku, Sendai Miyagi, 980-8576, Japan
Corresponding Author:[email protected]
Author ProfileAbstract
The supercontinent cycle explains how landmasses amalgamate into
super-plates, which dismember after a ~100 Myr tenure in
a quasi-periodic manner controlling Earth’s long-term geodynamics.
Pangea, the latest supercontinent, formed ~330 Ma, began
to rift ~240 Ma finally broke-up ~200 Ma
and it is generally considered the template for all previous
supercontinents. The formation of Pangea as a super-plate 330 Ma show a
major pitfall: The geologic record between 330-270 Ma predicts
>1500km of shortening/extension and shows large volumes of
magmatism and metamorphism of unidentified origin. Here I present a
tectonic reconstruction that reconciles the inconsistent datasets. In
this model, after the initial amalgamation of Pangea the comprising
plates kept interacting at least between 320 Ma and 270 Ma, when finally
established as a super-plate for a brief period of <70 Myr,
which following most recent models would be too short to control the
mantle dynamics.