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Oceania [Geography]


Externet

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At school looong ago, Oceania was a continent. Along the way, some genius changed the name.

 

So, in which continent are now Marianas, Hawaii, Pascua, Philippines, Solomon, Galapagos, Marquesas, New Guinea... ?

 

 

Is this what you are alluding to?

 

http://www.livescience.com/57927-new-zealand-part-of-eighth-continent.html

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No. It is about the question on which continent are the locations listed.

 

 

I don't think Oceania was ever a continent in the same way that north america is a continent...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania

 

It would seem the term continent is a bit arbitrary after all...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent

 

 

 

Geologists use the term continent in a different manner from geographers, where a continent is defined by continental crust: a platform of metamorphic and igneous rock, largely of granitic composition. Some geologists restrict the term 'continent' to portions of the crust built around stable Precambrian "shield", typically 1.5 to 3.8 billion years old, called a craton. The craton itself is an accretionary complex of ancient mobile belts (mountain belts) from earlier cycles of subduction, continental collision and break-up from plate tectonic activity. An outward-thickening veneer of younger, minimally deformed sedimentary rock covers much of the craton. The margins of geologic continents are characterized by currently active or relatively recently active mobile belts and deep troughs of accumulated marine or deltaicsediments. Beyond the margin, there is either a continental shelf and drop off to the basaltic ocean basin or the margin of another continent, depending on the current plate-tectonic setting of the continent. A continental boundary does not have to be a body of water. Over geologic time, continents are periodically submerged under large epicontinental seas, and continental collisions result in a continent becoming attached to another continent. The current geologic era is relatively anomalous in that so much of the continental areas are "high and dry"; that is, many parts of the continents that were once below sea level are now elevated well above it due to changes in sea levels and the subsequent uplifting of those continental areas from tectonic activity.[65]
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