At one time Earth had only one continent, what was it called?
365817
but before pangaea there was a super continent called gondwanaland.\n\nIf you look at the Wilson Cycle, this is a cyclic process that has repeated itself a number of times.
152704
Its so big like a conitnent but its not a continent. Asia is continent and its part of Asia so we call it sub continent.
113672
geological theory that the relative positions of the continents on the earth's surface have changed considerably through geologic time. Though first proposed by American geologist Frank Bursley Taylor in a lecture in 1908, the first detailed theory of continental drift was put forth by German meteorologist and geophysicist Alfred Wegener in 1912. On the basis of geology, biology, climatology, and the alignment of the continental shelf rather than the coastline, he believed that during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras, about 275 to 175 million years ago, all the continents were united into a vast supercontinent, which he called Pangaea. Later, Pangaea broke into two supercontinental masses–Laurasia to the north, and Gondwanaland to the south. The present continents began to split apart in the latter Mesozoic era about 100 million years ago, drifting to their present positions.
132465
there are 7 continents in the world: Africa, Antarctica, Asia(largest), Australia(smallest), Europe, North America, and South America.
761167
Good question, and a tough one to answer, although I'm skeptical of the "all known criteria" piece of it.  I did browse much of the Wikipedia entry, and I also have a globe here to look at.\n\nTo rephrase this question, I guess we could say, (1) why is it not a continent, and (2) why is it a subcontinent?\n\nTraditionally, there are six or seven continents -- North & South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica.  Sometimes Europe & Asia are combined into Eurasia, and some people like to combine the Americas.\n\nSize and geographic separation seem to be important ... the Central America connection is pretty narrow, as is the Suez connection.  On the other hand, the Ural mountains separating Europe from Asia is an ancient plate boundary (similar to the Appalachians, and much older than the Himalayas), and the Ural boundary certainly is not "narrow."  In that case, however, there are huge historical cultural differences between, for example, western Europe and East Asia.\n\nIn terms of size, Australia is the smallest continent, and Greenland is the largest island.  India is much closer in size to Greenland than to Australia.  (Also compare Madagascar, a large island drifting away from Africa.  The tectonic activity there is similar to India.)\n\nSo on the question of "why isn't it a continent," I'd say size matters a lot -- India isn't big enough -- and I'd say the closest boundary comparison is between the Himalaya barrier and the Urals.  West of the Urals is much, much larger than south of the Himalayas.\n\nCultural comparisons matter too, and by this measure, India could be considered a continent in its own right.  The Indian population is significantly different than the neighboring Oriental and Caucasian peoples.\n\nWhen you balance all this stuff, I guess you say Europe is its own continent -- it's big and culturally differentiable; but India is not a continent because it's not big enough.\n\nThe other part of the question is, why is it a subcontinent?  There, the Himalayas and, to a lesser extent, the Indian Plate, make a big difference.  Because of the mountains, India is geograpically separated from the rest of Asia.\n\nIt's also a large peninsula.  In this regard, we must compare with the Arabian Peninsula (which sits on the Arabian Plate), and maybe with Asia Minor, the boundary of which (by looking at a globe) may be said to extend from the Persion Gulf to the eastern end of the Black Sea, thus comprising a large area encompassing Turkey, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.  The other obvious large peninsula is Western Europe itself, bounded on the east by a line extending from the Black Sea to the Baltic.\n\nBut neither of those peninsulas have the Himalaya Mountain barrier.\n\nSo putting that altogether, I guess that's why India is a subcontinent and not a continent.  And since it seems to be the only generally recognized subcontinent in the world, that makes it pretty unique.
640818
Pangaea is the theorized supercontinent that existed eons ago when the earth was much newer. Pangaea broke apart, and over the eons, continental drift due to tectonic plate activity has resulted in the current alignment of the continents.\n\nBut if you piece together the current continents, kind of like a jigsaw puzzle, you can get an idea of what Pangaea may have looked like.
619834
Most textbooks (with their Euro-centric biases) will say that Columbus discovered the Americas.  The real answer is nothing; Columbus discovered nothing.  You can not discover a continent that is already inhabited.
842265
Pangaea is the name of the original super-continent.\n\nPlate tectonics describes how the continents move.\n\nRead here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics
401991
Since most geographers consider Australia as its own continent (though some consider it part of a chain of islands known as Indonesia), the real defining limit on what is considered an island can be found with the earth's largest; Greenland is considered the planet's largest island, therefore if it is larger than Greenland, it is a continent.\n\nAlso, if the theory of continental drift is true (and it more than likely is), several of our modern continents, like South America, Africa, and North America, that are connected to others at the present date were once surrounded at all sides by water. Geologists still consider their past forms as continents, so I suppose their opinions could be accepted as experts'.\n\nAlso, according to continental drift, the modern country of India was once its own island that broke free from Antarctica about 120 million years ago, headed northward over the course of about 70 million years, and slammed into modern day Asia, forming the Himalayan Mountains. Geologists consider the colliding country a 'sub-continent'. Being only 1.5 times the size of Greenland, the world's largest island, and considered a sub-continent implies that this is where the state of being anything other than an island begins and being an island ends.
38918
Mandy and Benny both have valid points. It's because of plate tectonics, because of which continents moved. Pangea (single continent) that existed millions and millions of years ago...slowly started dispersing and if you see the movement of india subcontinent, it moved all the way from southern africa and joined asian continent. This must have created a pileup of land that benny is talking about.
99646
All 7 continents were joined together billions of years ago. However through time, they gradually split up, resulting in North and South America, and Australia to be separate from the main body-Europe, Asia and Africa.\n\nI figured because Europe and Asia had different coloured people which each had their unique tradition and customs. As they ruled differently due to customs, tradition and prctices, they probably decided to each govern their own way and thus they spilt up into 'different continents', though Europe and Asia are on the same piece of land.
356276
Yes, unless you consider the Indian subcontinent to be a separate continent.
632232
Science explains that the world used to look more like a place called "Pangea", where all of the continents were connected. Over billions of years, the continents started to separate until they were in their present state.\n\nLook up "Pangea" for more information.
1145875
no, its a country and also name of a continent. \n\ncountries in australian continent are: australia, new zealand and papua new guinea.
501574
continental puzzle\nmatching rocks\nmatching fossils\nmatching mountain ranges\nmatching glacial deposits called till\n\nNot only was there one large supercontinent, but Pangaea was located along the equator so that places like present day Antarctica had lush forests & abundant fauna. We know this b/c there are fossils of tropical type animals & plants found there.\n\nThe Appalachian Mt. chain that runs up the eastern half of the U.S. from Arkansas all the way up to Maine where it ends only to start back up on Iceland and then back again in the U.K. They are the same age & same rock type & when you put the "puzzle" together they would line up.\n\nThe Andes Mts. in S.America is the same way. The chain ends & starts back up again on Antarctica.
1015757
Of what Continent or Island?
931762
To be tecchnically accurate the largest Continent (single land mass with a continental shelf) is Eur-asia, since Europe and Aiusa are conjoined  it is only geo-politically accurate to refer to them as separate continents. They are in fact one land mass and therefore the largest continent.