Talk:Superocean

message: I am no student of geology, or whatever science is appropriate here, but how can it be assumed that there was indeed a "superocean"? Isn't it possible, and even highly probable that there were other continents in this ocean which were simply swollowed by the action of tectonic movement? --KihOshk 15:28, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Continents don't sink. mike4ty4 (talk) 23:24, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Of course they do, continually. My suggestion is that just because Pangea existed at one point, it should not preclude that other plates were above water on other parts of the globe at same time. --KihOshk (talk) 05:33, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  No, they don't. Continents can't just disappear from the Earth by tectonic motion! Any continents in the Panthalassic Ocean would have to be accreted to modern continents due to the combined action of spreading at the "Mid-Panthalassic Ridge" (driving them toward the edges of the basin) as well as the opening of the Atlantic Ocean (driving the edges of the basin toward them), and there's no evidence to suggest accretion of massive continental blocks to them (e.g. the necessary orogens, mountain ranges, and other features are missing). It is not easy to subduct continental lithosphere and there's almost certainly no way a big continent could just go down the drain and disappear like ocean crust does. Where are you getting this bit about them sinking "continually" from, anyway? And if by "sinking" you mean something other than subduction, like the continents just "dropping" into the mantle, that's totally laughable: they aren't dense enough, for example. It would be like a cork floating on the ocean suddenly deciding to sink to the bottom like a stone. There were some small terranes that were not connected to Pangaea such as the Hunic terranes and Wrangellia but big continents? Nope. mike4ty4 (talk) 00:15, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I made it quite clear that I was no student of geology, and suggested that previous continents were "swallowed by the action of tectonic movement"; does this NOT suggest subduction? I'm not even talking about individual tectonic-plates, which are NOT perpetual, but only of what portion of these plates are above the ocean at any given epoch, and are considered "continents". This article is about a speculated "superocean", as if all presently recognized continental-plates had simultaneously, at some point in our volatile planet's past, all been in some miraculous alignment wherein there was a lone supercontinent isolated on one side of the globe. I only suggested that the other remote plates would likely have had portions above the water elsewhere which would constitute continents which have since been subducted or simply submerged. Oh, and for the record: I observed that continents can indeed be swallowed by subduction, to which you attributed the term "sink"; I never suggested that.  --KihOshk (talk) 05:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: What makes you think that whole entire continents have been subducted leaving nothing behind? It is not easy to subduct continental crust, it doesn't happen much and certainly not to the extent the oceanic crust -- how do you make a whole huge landmass the size of Europe or Africa do down the gutter and leave no trace (Remember, bits of subducted oceanic plate can be detected deep in the mantle using special techniques -- that stuff takes a _long_ time to melt and recycle)? And if by "sink" you just mean "submerged", then where are they now? They would have to have accreted to the present continents as there are no significant submerged continental masses under any of the 5 oceans. Which of course means we should see the resulting moutain ranges/orogens/etc. and more seriously since those masses would be available to study, one could backtrace their motion through methods of paleogeographic reconstruction to visualize them out in the super-ocean, yet this does not happen despite decades of geological studies. mike4ty4 (talk) 09:58, 5 April 2009 (UTC)