Terra Australis Orogen

The Terra Australis Orogen at 180 Ma crossing the South Pole (centre right) and flanked by the Phoenix-Farallon (left) and Phoenix-Izanagi (right) ridges. The Pacific Plate (triangle at bottom) has just been created.

The Terra Australis Orogen (TAO) was a late Neoproterozoic- to Paleozoic-age accretionary orogen that ringed the ancient, active southern margin of the supercontinents Rodinia and later Pannotia (also called Greater Gondwana). This vast orogenic belt stretched for c. 18,000 km (11,000 mi) along-strike and involved, from west to east (in the ancient, paleogeographic reference frame), landmasses belonging to the modern-day Andean margin of South America, the South African Cape, West Antarctica, Victoria Land in East Antarctica, Eastern Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. The formation of the Terra Australis Orogen is associated with the breakup of Rodinia at the end of the Neoproterozoic Era and the creation of Panthalassa, the paleo-Pacific Ocean, and it was succeeded by the Gondwanide orogeny with the formation of the supercontinent Pangea in the middle Paleozoic Era.[1][2]

  1. ^ Pankhurst & Vaughan 2009, Abstract
  2. ^ Cawood et al. 2021