The Fruitiness of August. The Silurian GONDWANA

The vast supercontinent of Gondwana was centred over the South Pole. In addition to Australia, Antarctica, India, Arabia, Africa, and South America, Silurian Gondwana also included smaller pieces of Florida, southern Europe, and the Cimmerian terranes—namely, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Tibet, and the Malay Peninsula—on its outer fringes. Either present-day Brazil or contiguous West Africa was stationed directly over the South Pole, buried by an ice cap likely comparable in size to the one capping Antarctica today. During Wenlock time, India, Tibet, the Malay Peninsula, and Australia projected into subtropical or tropical latitudes. The east-west ocean separating the southern European sector of Gondwana from northern Europe (Baltica) is called the Rheic Ocean and was essentially a southwestern extension of the Paleotethys Sea. The flooded margin of eastern Australia had a more-varied seafloor topography than the other shallow seas because of the extensive volcanism occurring there during Silurian time, but it shared many of the same faunal elements because of its tropical latitude.