#Panthalassa ??
7 messages in this thread
Help please! A friend's daughter has been set a project in her geography class
and needs to find the meaning of the word `panthalassa'.
Several hours research at the local library has been fruitless. Any help would
be very appreciated.
Paul Swift
Panthalassa means "all-ocean" , an analog to geologists' oft mentioned "Pangea"
or all-earth, which was a supercontinent that was assembled during the Permian
Period, about 230 million years ago. I seem to recall a science article of
Isaac Asimov's proposing that our planet should be called Thallasos or somthing
like that since it is covered (71%) by water.
Regards, Dick Gibson
datasoft,
Panthalassa = the ocean surrounding Pangea.
If you are not famialiar with Pangea, it was a supercontinent that existed from
about 300 m.y ago to 200 m.y ago. It presumably split into two
supercontinents, Laurasia and Gondwana.
— Alex
Panthalassic a. [Gk. pan, all; thalassa, sea] Living in both coastal and
offshore waters; neritic and oceanic. Dictionary of Scientific Terms, 7th
ed. Van Nostrand