A 100 million years of trans-oceanic marriages and divorces.
Today, India is converging and colliding with Asia and being pushed down, the doubling of the crust forming the high Himalayan Mountains. A similar process about 400 million years ago led to a major collision between the two large continents Laurentia and Baltica, also involving a number of smaller pieces of crust and volcanic chains. Their eventual assembly in the Caledonian mountains created a puzzle, which we geologists are trying to reconstruct by studying the individual pieces, searching for evidence concerning their history and origin, their travels and previous ties to other continents and tectonic plates. Where did they break away from? How did they end up in new associations?
Lecture by professor Fernando Corfu from UiO: Department of Geosciences.
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