What Is Panthalassa? About The Superocean In The Paleozolic
PANTHALASSA – In this topic, we are going to learn and discuss about the superocean in the Paleozolic era called Panthalassa.
Also known as Panthalassic Ocean or Panthalassan Ocean, it was the ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea.
The superocean covered at nearly 70% of Earth’s surface during the Paleozolic-Mesozoic era.
Its name is derived from two ancient Greek words pan (πᾶν) which means all, entire, whole; and thálassa (θάλασσα) which means sea.
Its ocean floor completely vanished due to the subduction along the continental margins on its circumference.
The superocean is also known as Paleo-Pacific (“old Pacific”) or Proto-Pacific due to the reason that the now Pacific Ocean developed from the superocean’s center in the Mesozoic era up to the present.
The ocean was a hemisphere sized ocean that is much larger than the Pacific. It is expected that its humongous size lead in relatively simple ocean current circulation patterns like a single gyre in each hemisphere, and a nearly stagnant and stratified ocean.
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