Pangaea, 2010?

[octoburn]

Okay, this is basically a theoretical/hypothetical question.

What would the world be like if Pangaea never broke up?

This isn't taking into account the "worst-case" scenario, for us; that mankind would have never appeared. what if we lived on the super-continent of Pangaea?

Would the world be more or less peaceful?

Would cultures be so varying, without oceans separating everyone? less variance in language?

Would wars be fought the same way, or differently?

Just curious on everyone's take on how things "could have" turned out.

 

[Almalexia]

Would cultures be so varying, without oceans separating everyone? less variance in language?

Basically the same; the great sand seas would be more of a barrier than oceans. At least you can sail at sea.

 

[CryoNomad]

Roman Empire would have expanded everywhere and we'd all be talking Latin. That or Chinese

@Tiberius Decimus Maximus

You forget if we were one big continent you could just sail around those deserts along the shared coast, and assuming we were one supercontinent would suggest little seismic activity creating few mountains and few zones of dryness.

 

[Almalexia]

I take it you don't know the circumstances of the Permian extinction then, do you?

 

[CryoNomad]

I take it you don't know the circumstances of the Permian extinction then, do you?

The continents had already started to pull apart by then.

 

[Almalexia]

Wikipedia says that they formed halfway through the Permian, and if memory serves, they didn't start to pull apart until the Triassic.

 

[octoburn]

actually, there would likely be mountains. Pangaea wasn't the first supercontinent, and was formed from two other supercontinents: Laurasia and Gondwanaland. so there was geological, seismic actions that created Pangaea. most mountain ranges would have been created by previous activity. not to mention many mountains/valleys created by glacier movement, which I would think would still be active. the main exception I could see is the Himalayas, seeing as India never crashed into Asia.

 

[CryoNomad]

Wikipedia says that they formed halfway through the Permian, and if memory serves, they didn't start to pull apart until the Triassic.

And during the Permian when pangea was being formed the land animals didn't suffer any ill effects. Your mass extinctions took place in the waters. Notably as all the fresh bodies of water were opened to the oceans.

Besides, could have been an asteroid like the poor dinos.

actually, there would likely be mountains. Pangaea wasn't the first supercontinent, and was formed from two other supercontinents: Laurasia and Gondwanaland. so there was geological, seismic actions that created Pangaea. most mountain ranges would have been created by previous activity. not to mention many mountains/valleys created by glacier movement, which I would think would still be active. the main exception I could see is the Himalayas, seeing as India never crashed into Asia.

You're right. I was thinking more Vaalbara and juxtaposed the two. I guess that geography would be a bit more fun. Although assuming plate tectonics ceased after that erosion over that long of time would have made them pretty flat.

 

[Almalexia]

Wikipedia says that they formed halfway through the Permian, and if memory serves, they didn't start to pull apart until the Triassic.

And during the Permian when pangea was being formed the land animals didn't suffer any ill effects. Your mass extinctions took place in the waters. Notably as all the fresh bodies of water were opened to the oceans.

I believe the pressing together of the continents formed the Siberian volcanoes, which were apparently massive enough to take a major part in the extinction.

 

[Finzi]

I think we'd be a lot more developed technologically because everything would spread more easily. Look at the technological development of the Americas compared to Eurasia.

 

[Finaz]

Dunno, maybe the native Americans were just noobs because they couldn't advance even though they had a perfectly fine land at their disposal.

 

[Devercia]

One could argue that the lack of land is the necessity that spurs invention.

 

[Urlik]

it is a hypothetical situation based on there being no tectonic plates shifting, so there would be no mountain ranges caused by plates smashing into each other (regardless of what happens in the real world)

there would still be volcanoes, but as the continent isn't moving around the surface of the planet, the volcanoes would probably all be active as they wouldn't move off the "hotspot"

this topic slightly reminds me of a documentary about what would happen if the world stopped spinning.
eventually a day would last a year and the oceans would retreat towards the poles, leaving an equatorial continent around the planet.

 

[Ambalon]

One could argue that the lack of land is the necessity that spurs invention.

Until one looked at China? Granted I know very little about ancient China's geopolitics, so I won't discuss about it.

Would cultures be so varying, without oceans separating everyone? less variance in language?

Cultures and languages would be more similar, which, I think, would affect the amount and violence of wars. This could make a nice book, actually, on how would things have turned out if evolution carried out the way it did, only in Pangaea.

 

[octoburn]

it is a hypothetical situation based on there being no tectonic plates shifting, so there would be no mountain ranges caused by plates smashing into each other (regardless of what happens in the real world)

actually, if plates never moved, Pangaea would never have formed. so, technically, it's based on if the plates stopped moving when Pangaea was formed.

 

[Deloused]

We'd live in a communist society ruled by me... muahahahahah!

 

[Flanged]

Britain would never have been a great imperial power (because navies wouldn't have been as important) and the various major wars, and World Wars would've been much easier in terms of logistics, and therefore probably more destructive. 

We'd probably all have been deaded by nuclear warfare by now, because people on the same landmass fight each other just as much as those on separate ones, and nuclear ideas and technology would've been harder to keep restricted to certain countries if we all had land borders (I think... but I might just be talking bull****).

As for language, culture and religion, etc. I'm not sure - it seems that prehistoric peoples travelled the globe to a surprising extent even without Pangeaa, taking their beliefs, languages, skills and knowledge with them.

Also, the Tower of Babel would've been completed in 1052, at the foot of the Alps, and God wouldn't have destroyed it, and instead climbed down to join us all as lifetime head of the UN and NATO.

 

[octoburn]

You're right. I was thinking more Vaalbara and juxtaposed the two. I guess that geography would be a bit more fun. Although assuming plate tectonics ceased after that erosion over that long of time would have made them pretty flat.

I'm not sure about the erosion point. The Appalachians were formed before Pangaea, along ith a range in northern Africa (which I forget the name) and they are both still prominent ranges.

Also, the longest in the world right now, is under water. The trans-oceanic range. Look it up. In pangaea, before the breakup, I imagine it would have been a very prominent mountain range.

 

[Flanged]

This is all well and good, but have either of you considered the effects of the Borg?

 

[Eino]

I think that the pangean united states would still suck at geography. And say that europe is west when it's east etc etc