Soniferous Podcast

Rodinia (from the Russian "Родина", ródina, meaning "The Motherland”) is a Neoproterozoic supercontinent that was assembled 1.3–0.9 billion years ago and broke up 750–600 million years ago. Valentine & Moores 1970 were probably the first to recognize a Precambrian supercontinent, which they named 'Pangaea I'. It was renamed 'Rodinia' by McMenamin & McMenamin 1990 who also were the first to produce a reconstruction and propose a temporal framework for the supercontinent. Rodinia formed at c. 1.0 Ga by accretion and collision of fragments produced by breakup of an older supercontinent, Columbia, assembled by global-scale 2.0–1.8 Ga collisional events. Rodinia broke up in the Neoproterozoic with its continental fragments reassembled to form Pannotia 600–550 million years ago. In contrast with Pannotia, little is known yet about the exact configuration and geodynamic history of Rodinia. Paleomagnetic evidence provides some clues to the paleolatitude of individual pieces of the Earth's crust, but not to th