1.5 bya Supercontinent Proposed

[Richard W Travsky <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

There's a small picture of this.


 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1892000/1892869.stm

An ancient supercontinent, far older than anything proposed before, has
been pieced together by an international team of geologists. 

The giant landmass, which has been dubbed Columbia, would have spread
across the face of the Earth more than one and a half billion years ago. 

The theory is that it then fragmented into smaller pieces before
reassembling into another supercontinent called Rodinia; and, later still,
a huge landmass scientists now refer to as Pangea. 

The researchers base their conclusions on rocks from India, East Africa
and Saudi Arabia. The specimens were collected during a joint Indian and
US study of the evolution of southern India.