Laurussia

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Presentation of the paleogeographical development of Avalonia, Baltica and Laurentia from the Ordovician to the Devonian

Laurussia (also Euramerica or Euroamerica ) is the name of a continent in geological history that was created in the course of the Silurian through the collision of Laurentia and Baltica / Avalonia and which developed independently up to the Upper Carboniferous . The term Euramerica can also be found in other publications for this geological continent . The term Old Red Continent, which is often used in the older publications, is also a synonym for Laurussia. However, the term is very imprecisely defined and basically describes a regional geological unit, which is characterized by the occurrence of the Old Red sandstone .

Naming

The name Laurussia as a name for the large continent formed from Laurentia and Baltica appears for the first time in a publication by a group of authors around Alfred M. Ziegler , which was published in 1977 in the Milwaukee Public Museum Special Publications in Biology and Geology series. In the work of another group of authors, again led by Alfred M. Ziegler, which appeared almost simultaneously in the journal Tectonophysics , the name Euramerica was introduced for this geological continent. Both names were used almost equally often in the following. Today, however, the name Laurussia has largely established itself .

Laurussia as an independent continent in the history of the earth

Laurussia in Devon

At the beginning of the Cambrian , about 540 million years ago, there were four larger land masses or continents, Laurentia, Baltica, Gondwana and Sibiria , as well as a number of smaller crust blocks. In the Silurian, Baltica and Laurentia collided, closing the intervening Iapetus Ocean to form Laurussia. In the Upper Carboniferous (approx. 310 million years ago) Laurussia merged with Gondwana , closing the Rheic Ocean . After Siberia had accreted to Laurussia in Unterperm, the supercontinent Pangea had formed, which stretched from the North Pole to the South Pole .

literature

  • Lexicon of Geosciences. Volume 1: A to Edi. Spectrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg et al. 2000, ISBN 3-8274-0299-9 .
  • Roland Walter : Earth history. The formation of the continents and oceans. 5th edition. de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2003, ISBN 3-11-017697-1 .
  • Alfred M. Ziegler, KS Hansen, ME Johnson, MA Kelly, Christopher R. Scotese , Rob Van der Voo : Silurian Continental Distributions, Paleogeography, Climatology, and Biogeography. In: Tectonophysics. Vol. 40, 1977, ISSN  0040-1951 , pp. 13-51.
  • Alfred M. Ziegler, Christopher R. Scotese, W. Stuart McKerrow , ME Johnson, RK Bambach: Paleozoic Biogeography and Continents Bordering the Iapetus (Pre-Caledonian) and Rheic (Pre-Hercynian) Oceans. In: Milwaukee Public Museum Special Publications in Biology and Geology. Vol. 2, 1977, ZDB -ID 192676-7 , pp. 1-22.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. http: //www.archäologie-holzheim.de/index.php? Option = com_content & task = view & id = 18 & Itemid = 46
  2. Holger Kroker: Fish on shore leave. In: welt.de . April 5, 2006, accessed October 7, 2018 .
  3. http://www.senckenberg.de/root/index.php?page_id=1251