The World Before Plate Tectonics

This channel is a jewel. To me, one of YouTube's very finest. Thanks so much.

"Hey supercontinent, what's your name?" "Nuna ya business."

Geologists call it the Boring Billion. Then came Disco.

"Geologists have opinions about that" How dare they

In case anyone's curious, the names of the supercontinents in order from oldest to youngest are: Vaalbara Ur Kenorland Arctica Atlantica Columbia (Nuna) Rodinia Pannotia Gondwana Laurasia and Gondwana Pangaea

The word Nuna took me by surprise for a moment as it is a word from Inuit languages, Kalaallisut being my native language. "Nuna" simply means "Land".

How far back in time could a stranded time traveler still survive by living off the land?

You know, I wouldn't mind being a squishy microbe.

This channel makes me feel like a kid again. I always used to want to be a paleontologist and you guys make me feel a bit closer to that dream :)

The best thing about this channel is the lack of comments from people denying evolution and the fact the earth is billions of years old.

The Boring Billion: a long period of time where (supposedly) very little happened 2020: a short period of time where everything happens

You guys make actually learning about Earth fun. Ive been a patron for a few months now, happy to support a channel promoting knowledge!

I have a hard time imagining the earth without plate tectonics.

Earth: We must rise up against subduction

First of all, this is a fantastic video. I'm actually doing my Masters on this exact topic! However, the claim at 7:15 is not supported by the latest science. The mineral referred to is glaucophane, which can only occur in modern-style cold steep subduction zones. Korenaga (2016) showed that glucophane would not have been able to be formed before around 800 Ma, due to the different composition of oceanic crust. Therefore, the appearance of glaucophane-bearing rocks does not mark the start of modern-style plate tectonics. There's lots of other evidence for plate tectonics being much, much older. Balica et al (2020) showed evidence for tectonics all the way back in the Archean 3.3 billion years ago.

Please do a video on every super continent!! And the animals that used to live in that era!!

I love it when they do geology videos

I'm currently doing my Masters on the tectonics of the Boring Billion! This is a great video, that I'll definitely link to my friends to explain what I'm studying! You're definitely right that there's debate about this, the start of modern-style plate tectonics is a hot topic (no pun intended) in geology right now. With regards to the comment at 7:15 about finding minerals exclusive to deep subduction indicating the start of plate tectonics, Palin & White (2016) and Korenaga (2016) showed that those minerals might not have been able to form during early Earth history due to the different composition of the subducting crust. So it's possible that blueschist-facies subduction went on earlier, despite the lack of old blueschists. There's also geochemical evidence for thicker continental crust all the way from the Archean to present (Balica et al 2020), which would indicate consistent modern style plate tectonics starting at about 3.2 Ga. Roberts (2013) attributes the thin crust during the Mesoproterozoic to 'lid tectonics', where the supercontinent Nuna insulated the underlying mantle, keeping things hot and thin. Neat stuff! Great video as always! Edit: said eclogite when I meant blueschist. Whoops!

Holy, as a geologist I can say this was pretty accurate and VERY didactic. What a video, congratulations. Sharing this with all my community.

Scrat is the reason why this is no longer the world we live in.