Supercontinent integrity between 0.8 and 0.6 Ga: the nemesis of Rodinia?

Abstract

AbstractThe view that the pre-Phanerozoic continental crust records transient supercontinent cycles separated by intervals of diverse shield motion has dominated interpretation of the Precambrian aeon. Of two separated supercontinent intervals, the latter, ‘Rodinia’, is considered to result from Meso-Neoproterozoic accretion and progressive dismemberment by fragmentation after c. 0.9 Ga. Although the present palaeomagnetic database does not permit this premise to be reliably tested by diverse relative movements, the alternative proposition that the crust comprised a quasi-integral lid during pre-Phanerozoic history is eminently testable because it demands conformity of poles to a single position or otherwise to a single apparent polar wander path (APWP). In the event, palaeomagnetic poles assigned to 0.8–0.6 Ga conform to a single (‘Franklin–Adelaide’) APW Track merging into a long interval (c. 0.75–0.6 Ga) of near-static polar behaviour employing reconstruction parameters derived from pre-0.8 Ga data. This is supported by a robust independent indicator, namely the history of rifting to drifting at c. 0.6 Ga as predicted from the subsidence histories of early Palaeozoic passive margins. Multiple environmental changes near the Precambrian–Cambrian boundary correlate with this transition. Evidence demonstrating that continental crust comprised a quasi-integral lid at 0.8–0.6 Ga with break-up confined to the Ediacaran Period is summarized. The Rodinia hypothesis postulating prolonged break-up from a contrasting reconstruction is shown to be fundamentally flawed and should now be discarded.