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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
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Why India is called "the subcontinent" or "the Indian subcontinent." From an article on a new species of dinosaur discovered there: >Scientists said they hope the discovery will help explain the extinction of the dinosaurs and the shifting of the continents - how India separated from Africa, Madagascar, Australia and Antarctica and collided with Asia.< Here's the dinosaur article link for the curious ( Rajasaurus)  : http://makeashorterlink.com/?G1C324695
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
I think it has to do with India not originally being part of the Asia continient.
Scientists said they hope the discovery will help explain the extinction of the dinosaurs and the shifting of the continents - how India separated from Africa, Madagascar, Australia and Antarctica and collided with Asia.
that collision created the Himalyas, I believe.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
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collision created the Himalyas
Giant fender bender.
The term subcontinent predates the acceptance of the idea of plate tectonics by at least 100 years. It would be interesting to see when the earliest reference to India as a subcontinent was.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
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Giant fender bender. 
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Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 95
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 95 |
Giant fender bender.
aka Tectonisaurus.
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Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 95
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 95 |
Why India is called "the subcontinent"?"The subcontinent is a peninsula that juts southward from the rest of Asia like an enormous arrowhead. We call India a subcontinent because it is a distinct landmass, but it is not large enough to be considered a continent. The nation of India dominates three-fourths of the subcontinent. Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh occupy the remainder." For full reference: http://www.mrdowling.com/612india.html
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Joined: Sep 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
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Why is Europe a separate continent? I never did understand that concept since Europe is attached to Asia. It would make more sense--considering a huge land mass--to call Eurasia one continent rather than two.
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Joined: Oct 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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IMHO, eurasia as continent make more sence... but it an other case of politics being more important that geography.
europe, is seperated from asia by water (at turkey)and by moutains (the ural's in russia) but more importantly, it is seperated by language group (latin got a lot of words from greek, and then became the basis for many of the europian language groups-- and philosophy--most fundimentally, religious philosophy.
So when european scholars divided the world into oceans and continents (and europeans ended up doing this, because christianity edged out muslim thought, and became the domaniant philosophy of learning -- (for a while, the muslem world lead in learning.. -- and for several reasons, they backed away from advanced learning (most of math and science of today is a christian continuation of arab and indian learning,) so these learned men wanted to have europe as a seperate continent from asia..
So Europe became a continient, not because its was such a different land mass, but because it wanted to seperate itself from 'eastern'(asian) thinking.
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Joined: Jul 2003
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I agree with Helen, Eurasia makes more sense. I have seen mention of Euafrasia too, since they were contiguous until Suez.
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Joined: Jun 2002
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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was Europe not a separate part of Pangaea/Gondwanaland, similarly to India?
formerly known as etaoin...
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