Arctica

For other uses, see Arctica (disambiguation).

Arctica was an ancient continent which formed approximately 2.5 billion years ago in the Neoarchean era.

Arctica consisted of the Canadian and Siberian shields, and is now roughly situated in the Arctic around the current North Pole.

History

Arctica joined with the continents Atlantica and Nena about one billion years ago to form the supercontinent, Rodinia.

With the breakup of the supercontinent, Arctica's fragments have mostly stayed at higher latitudes.

Nomenclature

Arctica was chosen as a name because since its formation the continent and the cratons that broke away from it have spent most of their time in northerly latitudes.

References

John J. W. Rogers: A history of continents in the past three billion years. Journal of Geology, 104: 91–107, Chicago, 1996
John J. W. Rogers, M. Santosh: Supercontinents in Earth History. Gondwana Research, 6(3): 357–368, Osaka 2003. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1342-937X(05)70993-X
Sankaran, A. V., The Supercontinent Medley: Recent Views. Current Science, 2003-08-25.