C1 Deep below Canada, clues to how the first continents formed.

As the surface continually reshaped itself over hundreds of millions of years, continents formed and broke apart.

This continent broke apart about 700 million years ago and formed other continents, one of which was Laurentia or the North American Craton.

The European continent forms a remarkable diversity of kingdoms and peoples.

The continent of Antarctica forms a land mass covering much of the area within the Antarctic Circle.

That grew in turn, finally to display a visible disk on which continents formed dark, clotted smudges on a grey-blue background.

Throughout the history of the Earth, there have been times when continents collided and formed a supercontinent, which later broke up into new continents.

The West Antarctic ice sheet is inherently unstable because the continent beneath it forms a large basin that bottoms well below sea level.

Similarly, national chapters can be members of GOPAC even if their continent has not formed a continental association.

One school of thought holds that continents might have formed as the early crust grew vertically.