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Using Paleomagnetic Data For The World 's Landmasses Of The Late Triassic Early Jurassic

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A supercontinent, known as Pangea, was formed by the aggregation of all the world’s landmasses in the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic. This concept of a supercontinent was originally proposed by Alfred Wegener (Wegener, 1915). He suggested that all continents assembled into a single supercontinent, approximately 300 million years ago, and then according to the theory of plate tectonics, began to break apart 175 million years ago (Rogers et al., 2004) Immense geologic and geophysical evidence have been presented, by Wegener and others, to support this theory for the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic. However when analyzing the paleomagnetic data for the Late Paleozoic time, inconsistencies are present which suggest a very different Pangea construction. These inconsistencies are seen in Late Paleozoic paleomagnetic data apparent polar wander paths (APWPs) for Laurussia and Gondwana. To fit Wegner’s Pangea reconstruction, the APWPs suggest a substantial crustal overlap and shearing (Domeier et al., 2012). This paper looks to review proposed alternative reconstructions for Pangea, using paleomagnetic data as the quantifiable method for determining the supercontinent’s location.
Paleomagnetic data as evidence for Plate Tectonics
Paleomagnetism is the study of earth’s magnetic field as preserved in the magnetic orientation of certain minerals. For example, when igneous rocks are formed, during cooling, certain minerals align themselves with the earth’s magnetic field and

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