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GONDWANA-INDIA

What is gondwana?
Gondwana was a large landmass, often referred to
as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550
million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about
180 million years ago). The final stages of break-up, involving the separation
of Antarctica from South America (forming the Drake Passage) and
Australia, occurred during the Paleogene. Gondwana was not considered a
supercontinent by the earliest definition, since the landmasses
of Baltica, Laurentia, and Siberia were separated from it. To differentiate it
from the Indian region of the same name , it is also commonly
called Gondwanaland.
Gondwana was formed by the accretion of several cratons. Eventually,
Gondwana became the largest piece of continental crust of the Palaeozoic Era,
covering an area of about 100,000,000 km2 (39,000,000 sq mi), about one-fifth
of the Earth's surface. During the Carboniferous Period, it merged
with Laurasia to form a larger supercontinent called Pangaea. Gondwana(and
Pangaea) gradually broke up during the Mesozoic Era. The remnants of
Gondwana make up around two-thirds of today's continenta area,
including South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, Zealandia, Arabia,
and the Indian Subcontinent.

Where is gondwana region in india?

Gondwana, historic region in
central India, comprising portions of Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra
Pradesh, and Maharashtra states. It is inhabited by the Gonds, a group
of Dravidian-speaking peoples exceeding three million in population, who are
among the officially designated Scheduled Tribes.

The Gonds were first mentioned in 14th-century Muslim chronicles. From the
14th to the 18th century the area was held by powerful Gond dynasties, which

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during Mughal times remained independent or served as tributary chiefs.
When in the 18th century the Gonds were conquered by the Marathas, the
greater part of Gondwana was incorporated into the dominions of
the Bhonsle rajas of Nagpur or the nizams of Hyderabad. Many Gonds took
refuge in relatively inaccessible highlands and became tribal raiders. Between
1818 and 1853 the greater part of the region passed to the British, although in
some minor states the Gond rajas continued to rule until Indian independence
in 1947.

What countries were in gondwana?

Gondwana, also called Gondwanaland,
ancient supercontinent that incorporated present-day South America,
Africa, Arabia, Madagascar, India, Australia, and Antarctica. It was fully
assembled by Late Precambrian time, some 600 million years ago, and the
first stage of its breakup began in the Early Jurassic Period, about 180 million
years ago. The name Gondwanaland was coined by the Austrian
geologist Eduard Suess in reference to
Upper Paleozoic and Mesozoic formations in the Gondwana region of central
India, which are similar to formations of the same age on Southern
Hemisphere continents.

The matching shapes of the coastlines of western Africa and eastern South
America were first noted by Francis Bacon in 1620 as maps of Africa and the
New World first became available. The concept that all of the continents of
the Southern Hemisphere were once joined together was set forth in detail
by Alfred Wegener, a German meteorologist, in 1912. He envisioned a single
great landmass, Pangaea (or Pangea). Gondwana comprised the southern half
of this supercontinent

Is India part of gondwana?

At early times ,India was once a part of gondwana
but it was no longer so as it separated from the gondwana later.

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when did India separate from gondwana?

More than 140 million years ago,

India was part of an immense supercontinent called Gondwana, which
covered much of the Southern Hemisphere. Around 120 million years ago,
what is now India broke off and started slowly migrating north, at about 5
centimeters per year. Then, about 80 million years ago, the continent suddenly
sped up, racing north at about 15 centimeters per year — about twice as fast
as the fastest modern tectonic drift. The continent collided with Eurasia about
50 million years ago, giving rise to the Himalayas.

For years, scientists have struggled to explain how India could have drifted
northward so quickly. Now geologists at MIT have offered up an answer:
India was pulled northward by the combination of two subduction zones —
regions in the Earth’s mantle where the edge of one tectonic plate sinks under
another plate. As one plate sinks, it pulls along any connected landmasses. The
geologists reasoned that two such sinking plates would provide twice the
pulling power, doubling India’s drift velocity.

The team found relics of what may have been two subduction zones by
sampling and dating rocks from the Himalayan region. They then developed a
model for a double subduction system, and determined that India’s ancient
drift velocity could have depended on two factors within the system: the width
of the subducting plates, and the distance between them. If the plates are
relatively narrow and far apart, they would likely cause India to drift at a
faster rate.

The group incorporated the measurements they obtained from the Himalayas
into their new model, and found that a double subduction system may indeed
have driven India to drift at high speed toward Eurasia some 80 million years
ago.

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“In earth science, it’s hard to be completely sure of anything,” says Leigh
Royden, a professor of geology and geophysics in MIT’s Department of Earth,
Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. “But there are so many pieces of
evidence that all fit together here that we’re pretty convinced.”

Royden and colleagues including Oliver Jagoutz, an associate professor of

earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences at MIT, and others at the
University of Southern California have published their results this week in the
journal Nature Geoscience.

Why gondwana so named?

Gondwanaland or “Gondwana” is the name for the
southern half of the Pangaean supercontinent that existed some 300 million
years ago. Gondwanaland is composed of the major continental blocks of South
America, Africa, Arabia, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, India, Antarctica, and Australia .
The name “Gondwana” is derived from a tribe in India (Gonds) and “wana”
meaning “land of.” Gondwanaland is superficially divided into a western half
(Africa and South America) and an eastern half (India, Sri Lanka, Madagascar,
Antarctica, and Australia).

The breakup history of gondwana and its impact:

The concept of
‘Gondwana’, an ancient Southern Hemisphere supercontinent, is firmly
established in geological and biogeographical models of Earth history. The term
Gondwana (Gondwanaland of some authors) derives from the recognition by
workers at the Indian Geological Survey in the mid- to late 19th century of a
distinctive sedimentary sequence preserved in east central India. This
succession, now known to range in age from Permian to Cretaceous, is
lithologically and palaeontologically similar to coeval non-marine sedimentary
successions developed in most of the Southern Hemisphere continents
suggesting former continuity of these landmasses. Palaeomagnetic data and
tectonic reconstructions suggest that the main assembly of Gondwana took

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place around the beginning of the Palaeozoic in near-equatorial latitudes and
that the supercontinent as a whole shifted into high southern latitudes, allowing
widespread glaciation by the end of the Carboniferous. From Carboniferous to
Cretaceous times the southern continents had broadly similar floras but some
species-level provincialism is apparent at all times. The break-up of Gondwana
initiated during the Jurassic (at about 180 million years ago) and this process is
continuing. The earliest rifting (crustal attenuation) within the supercontinent
initiated in the west (between South America and Africa) and in general terms
the rifting pattern propagated eastward with major phases of continental
fragmentation in the Early Cretaceous and Late Cretaceous to Paleogene.
Gondwanan floras show radical turnovers near the end of the Carboniferous,
end of the Permian and the end of the Triassic that appear to be unrelated to
isolation or fragmentation of the supercontinent. Throughout the late
Palaeozoic and Mesozoic the high-latitude southern floras maintained a
distinctly different composition to the palaeoequatorial and boreal regions even
though they remained in physical connection with Laurasia for much of this
time. Gondwanan floras of the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous (times immediately
preceding and during break-up) were dominated by araucarian and podocarp
conifers and a range of enigmatic seed-fern groups. Angiosperms became
established in the region as early as the Aptian (before the final break-up
events) and steadily diversified during the Cretaceous, apparently at the
expense of many seed-fern groups. Hypotheses invoking vicariance or long
distance dispersal to account for the biogeographic patterns evident in the
floras of Southern Hemisphere continents all rely on a firm understanding of the
timing and sequence of Gondwanan continental breakup. This paper aims to
summarise the current understanding of the geochronological framework of
Gondwanan breakup against which these biogeographic models may be tested.
Most phytogeographic studies deal with the extant, angiosperm-dominated
floras of these landmasses. This paper also presents an overview of pre-
Cenozoic, gymnosperm-dominated, floristic provincialism in Gondwana. It
documents the broad succession of pre-angiosperm floras, highlights the
distinctive elements of the Early Cretaceous Gondwanan floras immediately
preceding the appearance of angiosperms and suggests that latitudinal controls
strongly influenced the composition of Gondwanan floras through time even in
the absence of marine barriers between Gondwana and the northern continent.

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Pictorial showing the breakup:

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Reference of the chapter journey to the end of the earth:
With reference
to the chapter journey to the end of the earth I am able to get the clear
knowledge about the existence of a southern supercontinent, Gondwana. It
existed for six hundred and fifty million years ago. We learn that the climate
back then was much warmer and also sustained a huge variety of flora and
fauna. All this was before the arrival of human beings.