What is Paleogeography?
What is Paleogeography?
Definition of paleogeography : the geography of ancient times or of a particular past geologic epoch.
How is Paleogeography determined?
These geographic changes can be traced through the study of the rock and fossil record, and data can be used to create paleogeographic maps, which illustrate how the continents have moved and how the past locations of mountains, lowlands, shallow seas, and deep ocean basins have changed.
What is a paleogeographic map?
Paleogeographic maps have multiple uses. Paleogeography is a synthesis and can only be accomplished from extensive geologic data. When used in time sequence, they show trend and pattern through geologic time. They readily display distribution of ancient geologic features at the surface of the Earth.
What are Paleo landforms?
271. Hence, paleogeomorphology is the science of buried relief features of the earth. This includes both buried landscapes and buried submarine features, such as fossil submarine canyons, fossil reefs and fossil volcanic islands.
How does Paleogeography help society?
Paleogeographic evidence contributed to the development of continental drift theory, and continues to inform current plate tectonic theories, yielding information about the shape and latitudinal location of supercontinents such as Pangaea and ancient oceans such as Panthalassa, thus enabling reconstruction of …
In what eras did Pangaea exist?
Pangea existed between about 299 million years ago (at the start of the Permian Period of geological time) to about 180 million years ago (during the Jurassic Period). It remained in its fully assembled state for some 100 million years before it began to break up.
How does Paleogeography determine Earth’s climate?
Paleoclimatology. The Earth’s climate is primarily a result of the redistribution of the Sun’s energy across the surface of the globe. The ancient distribution of these, and other, rock types can tell us how the global climate has changed through time and how the continents have travelled across climatic belts.
Who studies Paleogeography?
Paleogeographers also study the sedimentary environment associated with fossils for clues to the evolutionary development of extinct species.
What is an ancient shoreline?
A raised shoreline is an ancient shoreline exposed above current water level. These landforms are formed by a relative change in sea level due to global sea level rise, isostatic rebound, and/or tectonic uplift. This area will then experience post-glacial rebound, effectively raising the shoreline surface.
How did Pangea contribute to geographic isolation?
Species were isolated by the uplift of major mountain chains along the suture zones of Pangea and by the lowering of sea level associated with climatic changes in the Permian, but there were also numerous opportunities for dispersal of biota across the large landmass and surrounding Panthalassic and PaleoTethys Oceans …
