Editing Rodinia (section)

{{Short description|Hypothetical Neoproterozoic supercontinent}}
{{Distinguish|text=[[Rhodinia]], a genus of moth}}
{{For|the genus of metalmark butterflies|Rodinia (butterfly)}}

'''Rodinia''' (from the [[Russian language|Russian]] [[wikt:родина|родина]], ''rodina'', meaning "motherland, birthplace"<ref name="mcmenamin">{{Harvnb|McMenamin|McMenamin|1990|loc=chapter: The Rifting of Rodinia}}</ref><ref name="RodinaMeaning">{{Harvnb|Redfern|2001|p=335}}</ref><ref>Taube, Aleksandr M., R. S. Daglish (1993) 'Russko-angliiskii Slovar' =: Russian-English Dictionary. Moscow: Russkii iazyk {{ISBN|5-200-01883-8}}</ref>) was a [[Mesoproterozoic]] and [[Neoproterozoic]] [[supercontinent]] that assembled 1.26–0.90 billion years ago (Ga)<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kee |first1=Weon-Seo |last2=Kim |first2=Sung Won |last3=Kwon |first3=Sanghoon |last4=Santosh |first4=M. |last5=Ko |first5=Kyoungtae |last6=Jeong |first6=Youn-Joong |date=1 December 2019 |title=Early Neoproterozoic (ca. 913–895 Ma) arc magmatism along the central–western Korean Peninsula: Implications for the amalgamation of Rodinia supercontinent |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301926819303791 |journal=[[Precambrian Research]] |volume=335 |doi=10.1016/j.precamres.2019.105498 |bibcode=2019PreR..33505498K |s2cid=210298156 |access-date=9 November 2022|url-access=subscription }}</ref> and broke up 750–633 million years ago (Ma).<ref name="ReferenceA">{{Harvnb|Li|Bogdanova|Collins|Davidson|2008|}}</ref> {{Harvnb|Valentine|Moores|1970}} were probably the first to recognise a [[Precambrian]] supercontinent, which they named "Pangaea I."<ref name="ReferenceA"/> It was renamed "Rodinia" by {{Harvnb|McMenamin|McMenamin|1990}}, who also were the first to produce a [[plate reconstruction]] and propose a temporal framework for the supercontinent.<ref name="Meert 2012">{{Harvnb|Meert|2012|loc=Supercontinents in Earth history, p. 998}}</ref>

Rodinia formed at c. 1.23 [[Gigaannus|Ga]] by [[Accretion (geology)|accretion]] and collision of fragments produced by breakup of an older supercontinent, [[Columbia (supercontinent)|Columbia]], assembled by global-scale 2.0–1.8 Ga collisional events.<ref name="Zhao1">{{Harvnb|Zhao|Cawood|Wilde|Sun|2002}}; {{Harvnb|Zhao|Sun|Wilde|Li|2004}}</ref> Rodinia broke up in the Neoproterozoic, with its continental fragments reassembled to form [[Pannotia]] 633–573 Ma. In contrast with Pannotia, little is known about Rodinia's configuration and [[geodynamics|geodynamic]] history. [[paleomagnetism|Paleomagnetic evidence]] provides some clues to the paleolatitude of individual pieces of the [[Earth's crust]], but not to their longitude, which geologists have pieced together by comparing similar geologic features, often now widely dispersed.

The extreme cooling of the global climate around 717–635 Ma (the so-called [[Snowball Earth]] of the [[Cryogenian]] period) and the rapid evolution of primitive life during the subsequent [[Ediacaran]] and [[Cambrian]] periods are thought to have been triggered by the breaking up of Rodinia or to a slowing down of [[Plate tectonics|tectonic processes]].<ref name="Piper" />