Proterozoic Supercontinents

Configurations of Proterozoic Supercontinents

Supercontinents embody perhaps the longest cyclic process on our planet, profoundly influencing the evolution of Earth’s biosphere, geosphere, and atmosphere on timescales of hundred-million years or more. Yet, the configurations of pre-Pangean supercontinents, Rodinia, Nuna, and/or Kenorland, as well as their transition processes remain the subjects of debate, hampering the understanding of the interactions between the global tectonics and Earth’s evolution in deep time. Compared to other approaches, paleomagnetism is the only quantitative method to reconstruct pre-Pangean supercontinents in an absolute paleogeographic framework. However, a recent summary of global paleomagnetic data of Precambrian age reveals two problems. First is that discordant paleomagnetic records exist in some cratons’ datasets, thus rendering paleogeographic interpretations difficult. Second is that some cratons have heretofore essentially no reliable Precambrian paleomagnetic records, yielding large uncertainties in their paleogeography. My research is dedicated to addressing these problems by expanding the reliable paleomagnetic constraints on configurations of pre-Pangean supercontinents, which will promote an understanding of the Earth’s evolution from a spatial perspective. The final establishment of a global paleogeographic framework in the Precambrian still awaits further integrations of robust paleomagnetic studies with geochronological, stratigraphical, geochemical, and paleontological constraints.