The Yangtze plate , also called the South China block or the South China subplate , comprises the bulk of southern China . It is separated on the east from the Okinawa plate by a rift that forms the Okinawa Trough which is a back-arc basin , on the south by the Sunda plate and the Philippine Sea plate , and on the north and west by the Eurasian plate . The Longmenshan Fault on the latter border was the site of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake .
25-628: The Yangtze plate was formed by the disaggregation of the Rodinia supercontinent 750 million years ago, in the Neoproterozoic era . South China rifted away from the Gondwana supercontinent in the Silurian . During the formation of the great supercontinent Pangaea , South China was a smaller, separate continent located off the east coast of the supercontinent and drifting northward. In
50-931: A near-static position between 750 and 633 Ma. This latter solution predicts that break-up was confined to the Ediacaran period and produced the dramatic environmental changes that characterised the transition between the Precambrian and Phanerozoic . However, this theory has been widely criticized, as incorrect applications of paleomagnetic data have been pointed out. In 2009 UNESCO's International Geoscience Programme project 440, named "Rodinia Assembly and Breakup," concluded that Rodinia broke up in four stages between 825 and 550 Ma: The Rodinia hypothesis assumes that rifting did not start everywhere simultaneously. Extensive lava flows and volcanic eruptions of Neoproterozoic age are found on most continents, evidence for large scale rifting about 750 Ma. As early as 850 to 800 Ma,
75-691: A rift developed between the continental masses of present-day Australia, East Antarctica, India and the Congo and Kalahari cratons on one side and later Laurentia, Baltica, Amazonia and the West African and Rio de la Plata cratons on the other. This rift developed into the Adamastor Ocean during the Ediacaran . Around 550 Ma, near the boundary between the Ediacaran and Cambrian, the first group of cratons fused again with Amazonia, West Africa and
100-678: A thick sedimentary cover, however deep drillings have revealed mostly Archaean crust. There are two shields in the East European Craton: the Baltic/Fennoscandian shield and the Ukrainian shield. The Ukrainian Shield and the Voronezh Massif consists of 3.2-3.8 Ga Archaean crust in the southwest and east, and 2.3-2.1 Ga Early Proterozoic orogenic belts . The Ural Mountains are the eastern margin of
125-504: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Rodinia Rodinia (from the Russian родина , rodina , meaning "motherland, birthplace" ) was a Mesoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic supercontinent that assembled 1.26–0.90 billion years ago (Ga) and broke up 750–633 million years ago (Ma). Valentine & Moores 1970 were probably the first to recognise a Precambrian supercontinent, which they named "Pangaea I." It
150-457: Is known about Rodinia's configuration and geodynamic history. Paleomagnetic evidence provides some clues to the paleolatitude of individual pieces of the Earth's crust , but not to their longitude, which geologists have pieced together by comparing similar geologic features, often now widely dispersed. The extreme cooling of the global climate around 717–635 Ma (the so-called Snowball Earth of
175-649: Is the area of exposed crystalline crust while the other part of the craton is the “ platform ” where the crystalline crust or basement is overlaid by younger sedimentary cover. Thus the crustal segments of the East European Craton comprise both the Baltic Shield and the Ukrainian Shield, and the sedimentary platform basement. The East European Craton has a very complex tectonic history with extensive Proterozoic and Paleozoic rifting,
200-610: Is the core of the Baltica proto- plate and consists of three crustal regions/segments: Fennoscandia to the northwest, Volgo-Uralia to the east, and Sarmatia to the south. Fennoscandia includes the Baltic Shield (also referred to as the Fennoscandian Shield) and has a diversified accretionary Archaean and early Proterozoic crust , while Sarmatia has an older Archaean crust. The Volgo-Uralia region has
225-485: The Cryogenian period) and the rapid evolution of primitive life during the subsequent Ediacaran and Cambrian periods are thought to have been triggered by the breaking up of Rodinia or to a slowing down of tectonic processes . The idea that a supercontinent existed in the early Neoproterozoic arose in the 1970s, when geologists determined that orogens of this age exist on virtually all cratons . Examples are
250-755: The Grenville orogeny in North America and the Dalslandian orogeny in Europe. Since then, many alternative reconstructions have been proposed for the configuration of the cratons in this supercontinent. Most of these reconstructions are based on the correlation of the orogens on different cratons. Though the configuration of the core cratons in Rodinia is now reasonably well known, recent reconstructions still differ in many details. Geologists try to decrease
275-864: The Triassic , the Yangtze plate collided with the North China plate , thereby connecting with Pangaea, and formed the Sichuan basin . In the Cenozoic, the Yangtze plate was influenced by the collision of the Indian plate and Eurasian plate creating the uplifting of the Longmen Mountains . Its southward motion is accommodated along the Red River fault . Sources This tectonics article
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#1732765742811300-663: The East European Craton and mark the Late Paleozoic orogenic collision of the East European Craton with the Siberian cratons . The southern margin of the craton is where Sarmatia is buried beneath thick Phanerozoic sediments and the Alpine orogens . The intervening Late Palaeozoic Donbas Fold Belt, also known as part of the Dnieper-Donets Rift , transects Sarmatia, dividing it into the Ukrainian Shield and
325-623: The Rio de la Plata cratons during the Pan-African orogeny, which caused the development of Gondwana. In a separate rifting event about 610 Ma, the Iapetus Ocean formed. The eastern part of this ocean formed between Baltica and Laurentia, the western part between Amazonia and Laurentia. Because the timeframe of this separation and the partially contemporaneous Pan-African orogeny are difficult to correlate, it might be that all continental mass
350-663: The Russian Platform). This is in sharp contrast to the exposed northwest portion of the Baltic Shield , and the Ukrainian Shield in the southwest. The lithospheric thickness also varies widely from 150–200 km in Ukraine to 120 km in southern Russia to over 250 km thick in the NE Baltic Shield, with extremely wide thickness fluctuations of the crustal layers. A shield in any craton
375-833: The Voronezh Massif. The southwestern boundary is known as the Trans European Suture Zone and separates the East European craton from the Phanerozoic orogens of Western Europe (e.g. Carpathians ). The northwestern margin of the craton is overlaid by the fold-and-thrust Early Paleozoic Caledonian orogen . The most distinguishable physiographic aspect of the East European Craton is the extensive 3-km and more-thick Riphean (middle to late Proterozoic) sedimentary cover over its 3000-km-wide platform area (East European Platform, EEP, also known as
400-452: The breakup of Rodinia onwards. Rodinia is considered to have formed between 1.3 and 1.23 Ga and broke up again before 750 Ma. Rodinia was surrounded by the superocean Mirovia . According to J.D.A. Piper, Rodinia is one of two models for the configuration and history of the continental crust in the latter part of Precambrian times. The other is Paleopangea , Piper's own concept. Piper proposes an alternative hypothesis for this era and
425-532: The crustal rocks rise up relative to their surroundings. This rising creates areas of higher altitude where the air is cooler and ice is less likely to melt with changes in season, and it may explain the evidence of abundant glaciation in the Ediacaran. The rifting of the continents created new oceans and seafloor spreading , which produces warmer, less dense oceanic crust . Lower-density, hot oceanic crust will not lie as deep as older, cool oceanic lithosphere. In periods with relatively large areas of new lithosphere,
450-774: The increased rainfall may have reduced greenhouse gas levels to below the threshold required to trigger the period of extreme glaciation known as Snowball Earth . Increased volcanic activity also introduced into the marine environment biologically active nutrients, which may have played an important role in the earliest animals' development. [REDACTED] Africa [REDACTED] Antarctica [REDACTED] Asia [REDACTED] Australia [REDACTED] Europe [REDACTED] North America [REDACTED] South America [REDACTED] Afro-Eurasia [REDACTED] Americas [REDACTED] Eurasia [REDACTED] Oceania East European Craton The East European Craton ( EEC )
475-421: The marine life of its time. In the Cryogenian , Earth experienced large glaciations , and temperatures were at least as cool as today. Substantial parts of Rodinia may have been covered by glaciers or the southern polar ice cap . Low temperatures may have been exaggerated during the early stages of continental rifting. Geothermal heating peaks in crust about to be rifted, and since warmer rocks are less dense,
500-418: The ocean floors come up, causing the sea level to rise. The result was a greater number of shallower seas. The increased evaporation from the oceans' larger water area may have increased rainfall, which in turn increased the weathering of exposed rock. By inputting data on the ratio of stable isotopes O: O into computer models, it has been shown that in conjunction with quick weathering of volcanic rock ,
525-448: The previous ones. This idea rejects that Rodinia ever existed as a transient supercontinent subject to progressive break-up in the late Proterozoic and instead that this time and earlier times were dominated by a single, persistent "Paleopangaea" supercontinent. As evidence, he suggests an observation that the palaeomagnetic poles from the continental crust assigned to this time conform to a single path between 825 and 633 Ma and latterly to
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#1732765742811550-548: The southwest with the Congo and Kalahari cratons ; and in the northeast with Australia , India and eastern Antarctica . The positions of Siberia and North and South China north of the North American craton differ strongly depending on the reconstruction: Little is known about the paleogeography before the formation of Rodinia. Paleomagnetic and geologic data are only definite enough to form reconstructions from
575-747: The uncertainties by collecting geological and paleomagnetical data. Most reconstructions show Rodinia's core formed by the North American Craton (the later paleocontinent of Laurentia ), surrounded in the southeast with the East European Craton (the later paleocontinent of Baltica ), the Amazonian Craton and the West African Craton ; in the south with the Río de la Plata and São Francisco cratons ; in
600-490: Was again joined in one supercontinent between roughly 600 and 550 Ma. This hypothetical supercontinent is called Pannotia . Unlike later supercontinents, Rodinia was entirely barren. It existed before complex life colonized on dry land. Based on sedimentary rock analysis, Rodinia's formation happened when the ozone layer was not as extensive as it is now. Ultraviolet light discouraged organisms from inhabiting its interior. Nevertheless, its existence significantly influenced
625-581: Was renamed "Rodinia" by McMenamin & McMenamin 1990 , who also were the first to produce a plate reconstruction and propose a temporal framework for the supercontinent. Rodinia formed at c. 1.23 Ga by accretion and collision of fragments produced by breakup of an older supercontinent, Columbia , assembled by global-scale 2.0–1.8 Ga collisional events. Rodinia broke up in the Neoproterozoic, with its continental fragments reassembled to form Pannotia 633–573 Ma. In contrast with Pannotia, little
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