Question: How , after a collision with another planet , Terra left with a huge ocean and a mega- continent ? Why Terra wasn't a planet with many islands??? :)

Asked by jonnyx7 to Alice, Andi, Bas, Daniel, Rhian on 13 Mar 2015.

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  1. Photo: Daniel Pastor-GalánDaniel Pastor-Galán
    answered on 13 Mar 2015:

    Hi johnyx7,

    I think we are missing concepts and time scale, here. Let’s try to explain that better. The Earth has 4500 000 000 years old. Very close to its born (4.5 Gyr ago) A body likely smashed against the Earth producing the Moon. Later on (likely 3.5 or 3.2 Gyrs ago) Plate tectonics started. Later on, plates amalgamated some times creating mountain belts and new continents. Every now and then all the Plates became together (2.8 gyrs ago, 1.9 Gyrs ago, 1gyrs ago., 0.3 Gyears ago). Pangaea formed the last “only” 300 million years ago. I understand that so many years ago con be confusing. But be sure that the big impact and Pangaea are not really a cause-consequence effect.

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  2. Photo: Rhian MearaRhian Meara
    answered on 18 Mar 2015:

    good answer from Daniel and a good question from you! 🙂

    youre right to wonder how the earth could look as it does now if it has been hit by a big planet. but as daniel is saying, this happened a really really long time ago. there was a huge amount of damage after this collision, but the world has repaired itself and filled in the wholes and created new continents and new oceans over time. The collision probably happened before the earth was even looking anything like it does now, so maybe the continents and the oceans didn’t even exist then!

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Comments

  1. Photo: jonnyx7jonnyx7
    commented on 14 Mar 2015:

    Oh thanks a lot Daniel !

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