TY - JOUR T1 - Did the Breakout of Laurentia Turn Gondwanaland Inside-Out? JF - Science JO - Science SP - 1409 LP - 1412 DO - 10.1126/science.252.5011.1409 VL - 252 IS - 5011 AU - HOFFMAN, PAUL F. Y1 - 1991/06/07 UR - http://science.sciencemag.org/content/252/5011/1409.abstract N2 - Comparative geology suggests that the continents adjacent to northern, western, southern, and eastern Laurentia in the Late Proterozoic were Siberia, Australia-Antarctica, southern Africa, and Amazonia-Baltica, respectively. Late Proterozoic fragmentation of the supercontinent centered on Laurentia would then have been followed by rapid fan-like collapse of the (present) southern continents and eventual consolidation of East and West Gondwanaland. In this scenario, a pole of rotation near the Weddell Sea would explain the observed dominance of wrench tectonics in (present) east-west trending Pan-African mobile belts and subduction-accretion tectonics in north-south trending belts. In the process of fragmentation, rifts originating in the interior of the Late Proterozoic supercontinent became the external margins of Paleozoic Gondwanaland; exterior margins of the Late Proterozoic supercontinent became landlocked within the interior of Gondwanaland. ER -