Wandering continents of the Indian Ocean

L.D Ashwal

doi:10.25131/sajg.122.0040

Abstract

Wandering continents of the Indian Ocean

Highlights

That the shapes of many continental outlines appear to fit together like a jig-saw puzzle was known as early as the 16th century by explorers like Magellan
Connecting the letters and words, he said, would be analogous to correlating geological features on continental entities separated by vast oceans. Using his knowledge of South African geology, stratigraphy, petrology, palaeobotany, hydrogeology, and geomorphology, in comparison with what he learned by visiting South America, Du Toit established compelling correlations that represented a successful test of the continental drift hypothesis
Many of the widespread granitic and migmatitic rocks in Madagascar had long been presumed to be broadly of “PanAfrican” age (~400 to 900 Ma), but in the 1990s, new U-Pb zircon geochronology began to reveal the presence in west-central Madagascar of abundant, late Neoproterozoic granitic and gabbroic plutons, with ages between 719 and 797 Ma (Figure 3) (Handke et al, 1999; Handke, 2001; Thomas et al, 2009)

Summary

Introduction

That the shapes of many continental outlines appear to fit together like a jig-saw puzzle was known as early as the 16th century by explorers like Magellan. Connecting the letters and words, he said, would be analogous to correlating geological features on continental entities separated by vast oceans Using his knowledge of South African geology, stratigraphy, petrology, palaeobotany, hydrogeology, and geomorphology, in comparison with what he learned by visiting South America, Du Toit established compelling correlations that represented a successful test of the continental drift hypothesis. This effort was carried out by large teams of geoscientists from a consortium of French, British, German and American governmental and industrial organizations, and involved extensive field-based geological re-mapping complemented by digital remote sensing geophysical and other data, as well as sampling of rocks and soils for new geochemical and geochronological analyses (Moine et al, 2014 and papers therein). Framework of the plate tectonic paradigm that Alex du Toit helped to establish

A Fragmented Neoproterozoic Andean-type Arc in Rodinia

Findings

Concluding remarks