Kenorland

Kenorland is a proposed Neoarchean supercontinent assembled about 2.7 billion years ago and beginning to fragment around 2.4 billion years ago. Its existence and configuration are reconstructed from geological evidence rather than preserved as a single landmass.

Craton: A stable, long-lived part of continental lithosphere that forms the ancient core of a continent. Kenorland is reconstructed from cratons that may once have formed a joined landmass.
Plate tectonics: The theory that Earth’s outer shell consists of moving plates whose interactions reshape continents and ocean basins. It provides the broad tectonic framework for interpreting Kenorland’s assembly and dispersal.
Vaalbara: A proposed Archean supercontinent or supercraton formed from the Kaapvaal and Pilbara cratons. Its proposed assembly predates Kenorland and represents a more restricted early landmass.
Great Oxidation Event: A major rise in atmospheric oxygen beginning around 2.4 billion years ago. Its onset overlaps the proposed breakup interval, prompting hypotheses about links between tectonics and oxygenation.
Superior Craton: A large Archean craton spanning parts of present-day Canada and the United States. Its geological record provides key evidence for the proposed supercontinent’s assembly and fragmentation.
Continental collision: The convergence and joining of continental lithosphere as tectonic plates move toward one another. Collision is one process that could have joined the cratons proposed to form Kenorland.
Ur: A proposed Archean continent reconstructed from fragments now found in India, Australia, Madagascar, and Africa. Its reconstruction offers a different account of early continental organization than Kenorland.
Paleoproterozoic: The first geological era of the Proterozoic Eon, spanning about 2.5 to 1.6 billion years ago. Kenorland’s fragmentation is placed near the Archean–Proterozoic transition.
Kaapvaal Craton: An Archean craton underlying much of southern Africa. Its ancient rocks are among the cratonic records considered in reconstructions of Kenorland.
Rift: An elongated region where continental lithosphere stretches, thins, and may split apart. Rifting offers a mechanism for the breakup inferred from the supercontinent’s younger geological record.

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PannotiaCompared with: Kenorland is another inferred supercontinent, but it predates Pannotia by billions of years.