Late Palaeozoic

• Main Author: Hallam, Anthony
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressOxford 1994
• Subjects: Greenland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198540618.003.0006; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/53075994/isbn-9780198540618-book-part-6.pdf

Abstract As a result of the so-called ‘conquest of the land’, the Late Palaeozoic was the time when a substantial biota of vascular plants and vertebrates became established on the continents, thereby expanding the range of organisms whose biogeography can be studied. As regards plate tectonics, the supercontinent Pangaea had been created in the Permian, as a consequence of successive coalescence of continental blocks. Reconstruction of Pangaea for Permian times has proved problematic, because of an apparent disparity of geological and palaeomagnetic results. When plotted on a conventional Pangaea reconstruction the palaeomagnetic poles for Gondwana are clearly distinct from those of the other major component, Laurussia, consisting of North America, Greenland, and Europe. Attempts have been made to avoid unacceptable overlap of these components by invoking right-lateral shear movement on a huge scale in Late Permian and Triassic times. Morel and Irving (1981) proposed a pre-shear reconstruction in which the northern margins of South America lay adjacent to eastern North America and West Africa against southern Europe. Even more extreme, Smith et al. (1981) had South America against Europe and Africa against southern Asia (Fig. 6.1).