What is the continent and what does it consist of?

The entire surface of the Earth consists of water and land. And the solid part accounts for only 29% of the total area of the planet. Yes, and that is riddled with rivers, rivulets, streams, canals. And how many on land there are swamps, ponds and lakes - and do not count, as some of them periodically disappear, then reappear. Probably, our planet would be more appropriate to call Water.

All land is divided into separate continents. They are also called continents. What is the mainland, what is the history of its origin and development - for a long time remained a mystery. Today geological science can explain a lot, in particular, why the continents are moving.

What they consist of

A huge granite-sedimentary block lying on the basalt layer, about 40 kilometers thick - that's what the continent is. Today there are six continents, and they are located on the earth's surface very unevenly, grouped in the opposite part of the Pacific from the Pacific . By its structure, the continents are not homogeneous. They consist of:

• Geosynclines (areas of folding);
• Platforms (sustainable areas).

Answering the question about what the continent is, it can be said that this is a large land massif, washed by the ocean and consisting of mobile and stable areas.

Movable parts of the continents are folded zones, stretched for a length of thousands, or even tens of thousands of kilometers. An example of such a geosynclinal area can serve as the Alpine-Himalayan belt, stretching in a latitudinal direction across the whole of Eurasia. In the relief of folding, they are expressed by mountains and valleys.

Platforms are inactive regions. These are stable, long-formed sections of the earth's crust. They are covered from above with a sheath of sedimentary rocks that hide all the unevenness of the basement. On such areas of the earth's crust are large plains. An example is the East European Plain, which is located on the Russian platform.

Drift of continents

In our time there are 6 continents. The largest of them is Eurasia, and then they are located in this order: Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica and the smallest - Australia.

But there was such a period in the history of the Earth when there was only one supermaterial Pangea and it was washed by the waters of the same Pantalassa ocean. What is the continent of the Mesozoic era? This is a huge land, equal in size to all today's continents combined. Pangea was covered with lush vegetation, among which dinosaurs walked freely. It was their kingdom and the time of bloom.

Approximately 200 million years ago, the ancient continent split into Laurasia and Gondwana. Between them formed the ocean Tethys. Laurasia went to the northern hemisphere, and Gondwana remained in the southern hemisphere.

In turn, these two ancient continents, under the action of the movement of matter of the mantle, also split into separate parts, which began to drift in different directions, gradually moving away from each other. Thus, modern continents were formed, the outlines of which are known to us from the school bench.

Thus, any modern continent is just a fragment of ancient Pangea, which existed in the distant past.