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At one time, most of the Earth's land mass was part of one supercontinent, Pangaea, which had been formed from another supercontinent, Gondwanaland, and several smaller land masses - some of which had already merged in their own right. Tragically, the forces of continental drift which brought them together
also tore Pangaea apart again. I think we should make super-fast artificial plate tectonics to bring Pangaea back together again, in the interest of the unification of almost the whole world, which could then form a massive superstate.
Pangaea Reunion
http://starbulletin...ity/nightclubs.html
Anna Bannana's: Pangaea Reunion Concert, 8:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Aug. 4, 2440 S. Beretania St. Cover $3. Call 737-9827 [Op, Jun 19 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004]
(?) Pangaea
http://dictionary.r...om/search?q=Pangaea
for [empty89]... [-alx]
"Reunite Gondwanaland" bumpersticker
http://members.trip..._Bumpersticker.html [-alx, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
"Reunite Gondwanaland" bumpersticker
http://members.trip..._Bumpersticker.html
[krelnik, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
The how.
World-wave
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 14 2009]
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I have to admit that I would get edgy in such a big country and I would need to see the coast or at least a tidal river. One problem is that the total amount of coastline worldwide would be reduced and therefore land by the sea would be very expensive. Therefore space for people to go paddling with a knotted handkerchief on their head would be limited. |
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[UnaBubba] We can't go on using masses of fuel to travel about forever. Instead, we should harness the power of the Earth's interior to bring places closer together. |
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[Aristotle] The fictional characters in Robert Silverberg's Majipoor books managed fine inland on land masses far bigger than Pangaea. I can only conclude from this that the inhabitants of my new Earth would be similarly happy. |
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Very good, [Rods]; what's it like where you are?
If you wanted to move Germany, would you need plate Teutonics? |
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We would have to find some way of resolving problems caused by the tunnel between England and France. If we were to move away, this would have to be severed in some way. Otherwise many people would no doubt be unhappy with the UK remaining anchored to the continent while other countries were enjoying their new-found freedom by larking around by the equator. |
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Goodness me no, -alx, we could use the Worm Train concept to have an extendable (or crushable) under-sea-floor tunnel between every continent or country. Then with subsequent plate movements we could all still be connected. And the skies would be clear again. Clear of planes I mean.
I worry what the reunification of Pangæa would do to global weather systems. And the possible effect on the earth's spin off its axis due to all the weight being on one side. (that's a flippant comment, ok.) |
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But won't reunification happen eventually anyway? Sure the various land masses are moving apart from each other relative to the original geographical center of Pangaea, but the planet's a sphere. Eventually they'll all cram together again on the other side. We should get some great new ski resorts out of it, too. |
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[PeterSealy] That idea's just implausible and unworkable. I have a feeling you're trying to be a bit silly. |
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Super fast artificial plate
tectonics, hmm. |
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if you wanted to separate, say, Scotland, or even Britain from Europe, you'd have to break up the existing tectonic plates into much smaller ones. You would, of course, also therefore create new ocean trenches and mountain ranges where one plate slips under another, and new mid-sea ridges to move them apart. The result would certainly be a very big increase in volcanic and seismic activity, with a much larger proportion of the world suddenly becoming very prone to major natural disasters. This would be exacerbated by the speeding up process (that plate's gotta go somewhere) so you might even get mountain building events (or Orogeny to use their proper name - no reason for adding this except that I think 'orogeny' is a fantastic word) in geographic rather than geological time periods. In this case you might notice mountains getting higher, there would certainly be some new one's too. Also, as you have speeded up the mountain creation process, but not the erosion process, these mountains would last a lot longer. Amongst other things... |
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Increased activity in orogenous zones? I'm in favour.
(Well, *someone* was bound to say it.) |
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[goff] So what you're saying is that I can count on the vote of mountaineers and seismologists for my idea? |
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What is your opinion of the pyramids being 'a sign' of when the Earth will undergo a 'shift'? How about Atlantis being in Antartica? "Fingerprints Of The Gods" is the book I'm culling that info from via vast network of neurotransmitters. |
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I'm more a far of 'Chariots of the Gods', with the extension that as well as being astronauts, the gods were the ones who originally caused Pangaea to split apart through engineered plate tectonics. We just need to find where they hid the controls. |
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Actually, I think we should rather do the opposite. Think of all the present ocean-side property that will lose value, and the poor souls stranded in super-Siberia with really lousy weather patterns. Everyone would eventually live within a few hundred miles of a coast, anyway, which makes the travel problem worse, not better.
Instead, we should break up Asia into several, money-making island resorts, each with their own cultural theme. In more primitive times there were few wars between island-nations, after all. |
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In primitive times they didn't have airline carriers, war jets, and guided missiles either. Though it's better than just having them right next to each other I guess... |
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A word from a geoscientist..... |
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You REALLY don't want a super continent...
When you get a supercontinent there is an aquiescent period in terms of volcanics. |
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Plate tectonics allows heat loss from the centre of earth. A simplified view is that the plates moving over the surface are like the top section of a convection cell. |
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In times of supercontinents (several of which have existed through geological time) there are less volcanos = less well distributed heat loss. Heat begins to build up under the continent, eventually breaking through cataclysmically. The large igneous provinces that are found in places such as Deccan in India, and Columbia River in U.S. are the products of such huge events. The amount of gas given of in such an extrusion is enough to make the atmostphere fairly unpleasant for quite some time. |
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It was this effect that allowed the breaking of the snowball earth climate that Peter has linked to above. -The gases produced a greenhouse effect. |
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I accidentally re-half baked this just now along these lines:
squash us back into one supercontinent and reduce travel time
Imagine a world where all of use lived on one big continent, we'd be in much closer timezones (can therefore better organise efficiencies of scale), travel distances would be less (saving fossil fuels and making world trade fairer). The edges could be jagged, to ensure that lots of people could live on the coast, or we could have a few internal lakes.
All of this could be acheived by cunning use of erm.. stockpilied nuclear weapons? (won't need 'em if we're all on the same landmass).
Nice work [-alx] |
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You would destroy the ecosystems of coastal wildlife by joining continents- but you knew that. |
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naah, just have the top edge nearer to one of the poles and the bottom edge equitorial, make sure the edges are very jagged (I suggested fractals) to ensure perimeter to area ratio is optimal. |
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In the title, you spelled Pangea wrong. You can click the edit button. |
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I have an Idea. Let's use ants to pull Mt. Everest to the moon! |
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This is not really very original, I remember seeing "Reunite Gondwanaland" bumper stickers at least 20 years ago. |
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...and [link] if I don't forget after this... |
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What about us Laurasians? Do we have to stay lonely on our discrete continents? |
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A quick Google indicates that the idea of reuniting Gondwanaland is more popular than that of reuniting Laurasia. Presumably this is because it ends in "-land". |
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Yes, they were a fantastic live act. I'd certainly go see them again if they reformed. |
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Didn't Laurasia do 'Oh Superman'? That song tends to make me think of continental drift. |
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