Gondwana

[gond-wah-nuh]

noun

1. a hypothetical landmass in the Southern Hemisphere that separated toward the end of the Paleozoic Era, the remnants of which make up what are now South America, Africa, Arabia, the Indian subcontinent, Australia, and Antarctica.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Gondwana¹

First recorded in 1870–75; from Sanskrit goṇḍa, the name of a Dravidian people and region in north central India + vana “forest”

Example Sentences

To support their model, the team analyzed chemical and geological data from regions such as the Indian Ocean Seamount Province -- a chain of volcanic formations that appeared after the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana over 100 million years ago.

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Their findings show that soon after Gondwana split apart, a pulse of magma unusually rich in continental material erupted to the surface.

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Earlier theories suggested that Podonominae originated in northern Gondwana before spreading northward into Laurasia, the ancient landmass that included today's Northern Hemisphere continents.

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"This fossil, which is the oldest registered find in the Southern Hemisphere, indicates that this group of freshwater animals might have originated on the southern supercontinent of Gondwana," explains Viktor Baranov, a researcher at the Doñana Biological Station and first author of the study.

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Swedish entomologist Lars Brundin first proposed in 1966 that the breakup of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana triggered this evolutionary separation.

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