What was Pangea? | Opinion

From about 280-230 million years ago (Late Paleozoic Era until the Late Triassic), the continent we now know as North America was continuous with Africa, South America, and Europe. They all existed as a single continent called Pangea. Pangea first began to be torn apart when a three-pronged fissure grew between Africa, South America, and North America. Rifting began as magma…

Source: What was Pangea?

Opinion:

The other night I was at a birthday party and someone mentioned the topic of Pangea (Ancient Greek pan (πᾶν, “all, entire, whole”) and Gaia (Γαῖα, “Mother Earth, land”).

I had heard about Pangea before the web and Wikipedia, but hearing about it again renewed my interest.

Turns out there were different theories about just why the continents set sail, if you will, from their original lumped-together position.

One theory, now discredited, was that centripetal forces from the Earth’s rotation spurred on the movement. That was replaced with the now-accepted idea of plate tectonics.

Wegener originally proposed that the breakup of Pangaea was due to centripetal forces from the Earth’s rotation acting on the high continents. However, this mechanism was easily shown to be physically implausible, which delayed acceptance of the Pangaea hypothesis.^[14] Arthur Holmes proposed the more plausible mechanism of mantle convection,^[15] which, together with evidence provided by the mapping of the ocean floor following the Second World War, led to the development and acceptance of the theory of plate tectonics. This theory provides the now widely-accepted explanation for the existence and breakup of Pangaea.

The idea of continental drift may have appeared as far back as 1596 when the cartographer Abraham Ortelius noted how the continents seemed to potentially fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. Some opposed this view. They believed everything was fixed and did not change.

The fixists, as they are called, remind me a bit of the sheer stupidity of people like Justin Trudeau as he cripples the Canadian oil and gas industry and everyday Canadians with his pie in the sky anti-climate change goals.

Last night at the pumps it cost almost $40 for half a tank of gas (in a small-sized vehicle, to boot) and I felt real frustration with our Canadian PM. He seems out of touch, like a little prince who delights in pleasing world leaders for his own self-aggrandizement, all the while not giving a damn about ordinary Canadians who pay for his luxurious ego trip and extravagant lifestyle.

At a time when a real crisis, namely Covid, is hurting the general population with inflation like never before, Trudeau makes it worse with his grandiose dance on the world stage.

Look at me! Look at me! I’m young, pretty, and cool! And I CARE about the planet! I’m a secular saint! is Mr. Trudeau’s real message to himself and everyone else.

Change is the name of the game. And in Canada, it is definitely time for a change in leadership.