Cratons have largely been unaffected by mountain-building events because the Precambrian. A craton sometimes consists of a continental protect surrounded by a continental platform. The protect is a area where historical crystalline basement rock (typically 1.5 to three.8 billion years old) is broadly exposed at the floor.
That justifies calling Greenland the biggest island and Australia the smallest continent. The second-largest ratio is between Greenland and New Guinea (2.71). Whether you consider there are 5, 6, or 7 continents would largely depend on when and the place (i.e., which country) you went to highschool.
This inhabitants is spread over 23 totally different international locations including three that occupy huge lands, such as Canada, The United States, and Mexico. This continent has a land space of 2,970,000 sq. miles or 5,179,976 square kilometers. As of 2016, its population is 39,901,000, making it the second least populated continent on Earth, solely behind Antarctica. [newline]With the equator traversing the African continent roughly via its middle, Africa has distinct climatic areas. The areas immediately north and south of the equator have climates that fluctuate from warm to tropical or a mix of each.
South America has 12 states and it’s a subcontinent of America. On the northern aspect of Asia, there may be the Arctic Ocean, the Indian Ocean to the south and the Pacific Ocean to the east. The Asian continent is popularly identified for its vast selection by way of ethnic groups, historical past, economics, environments, culture, and authorities methods. Antarctica is the coldest continent on earth and most of its landmass is made of everlasting glaciers.
The platform surrounding the shield can be composed of historical basement rock, however with a canopy of younger sedimentary rock. The continents are accretionary crustal “rafts” that, in distinction to the denser basaltic crust of the ocean basins, aren’t subjected to destruction by way of the plate tectonic strategy of subduction. This accounts for the good age of the rocks comprising the continental cratons. In 1507 Martin Waldseemüller revealed a world map, Universalis Cosmographia, which was the primary to show North and South America as separate from Asia and surrounded by water. In the accompanying e-book Cosmographiae Introductio, Waldseemüller noted that the earth is split into 4 elements, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the fourth half, which he named “America” after Amerigo Vespucci’s first name.