What Is Panthalassa? About The Superocean In The Paleozolic

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.

PANTHALASSA
Image from: Wikipedia

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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