The Remnants of a Lost ‘Supercontinent’ Just Rewrote the History of Life on Earth
404 Media 1 month ago 10
Scientists identified the submerged remnants of Gondwana and reconstructed its contours using data from over 25,000 rocks to confirm it was a supercontinent linked to the Cambrian explosion of complex life. Gondwana made up roughly 80 percent of Earth’s landmass between 550 and 500 million years ago. The new global crustal map and isotope evidence tie deep-Earth tectonic processes to the timing of early animal diversification and will be refined with a larger rock database to improve reconstructions.