Tetonic Plates and Katahdin

The University of Sydney (Australia), has all sorts of interesting animated graphics depicting among other things the movement of tectonic plates. After studying several of their graphics, its become obvious why my question about where Katahdin originated is a bit naive. There has been such a huge shift in the location of these plates since 200 Million Years Ago (Ma) when according to U of Sydney models the earth looked like this. This image sketches out the last giant super continent, Pangea.

Going back 400 Ma, prior to the formation of Pangea, the continents were unrecognizable, at least to my uneducated eyes. But this was the age you find references to Katahdin’s origin, perhaps as a super volcano. At this point, I’ll accept that the origin of Katahdin remains a mystery.

http://portal.gplates.org/cesium/?view=topo_recon

The GPlate app that generated the above graphic.

http://portal.gplates.org/#apps-anchor

GPlates Portal (University of Sydney) All sorts of interesting graphics for those interested in earth sciences including tectonic plate movement.