# Continents-Manmade? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 17, 2017, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119 "2017-02-17T23:07:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2017, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/41 "2017-02-20T05:29:46Z")
> [@Weisshund](#): > > Eurasia Why are you including Eurasia? It’s already been pointed out that Eurasia includes at least four plates: Eurasia, India, Arabia (which was originally part of Africa), and North America. The Eurasian continent as usually defined in no way coincides with tectonic plates. It’s basically silly to even try to define continents scientifically. Continents are cultural constructs, not scientific ones. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2017, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/42 "2017-02-25T19:48:47Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Why are you including Eurasia? It’s already been pointed out that Eurasia includes at least four plates: Eurasia, India, Arabia (which was originally part of Africa), and North America. The Eurasian continent as usually defined in no way coincides with tectonic plates. > > It’s basically silly to even try to define continents scientifically. Continents are cultural constructs, not scientific ones. India is it’s own plate, still maintains independance from both eurasia and australia Arabia is it’s own plate, its a secondary plate because of landmass, it is still independent of the plates surrounding it. Eurasia is considered a single entity, at this time, because it’s parts currently appear to be locked together in a cohesive unit. Should they decide to shear and diverge at some future point, yea we will have to call it something else. Not much different than if india decided to crawl up over part of the australian plate and then fuse to it, we would have to redefine it. Chunks of earth moving across the globe would not be a cultural thing, how could it? They were there doing this before humans and will be doing it after humans. How does the political aspect even enter into this? That’s silly. Once upon a time an animal could have woke up in the morning in North Carolina United States, and decide to walk to Timbuktu Africa, except there was no north carolina, or timbuktu or africa or united states, there was just Pangea and no politics and no culture. Take a lump of play-doh and roll it out flat. It is real, it is a thing correct? Give it a name so you have some way of referring to it. Now shear a chunk off of it and move it over some. You now have 2 pieces, they are both still just as real are they not? Nwo you have to label the 2nd piece something so you have a way to refer to part 1 and part 2 Now shear part 1 in half again, move that half over and fuse it to part 2 Now you went from 2 pieces, to 3 pieces for a time, and now into 2 new sized pieces. At all points there all the pieces are real, not political not cultural, just real physical things that are what they are at any given point of time, but that have proved that they can change what they are over the course of time. now, take your new part 2, break it in half, then break one half into 30 pieces. You now have 32 real pieces, yes? now take 20 of those pieces and stick them together a bit so if you push one around the others move with it regardless of direction. It is moving as a cohesive unit now, so until it changes doing so, you now have 13 pieces, you can name it part 13 if you like, for as long as it remains part 13. If you pull it apart, then of course it is no longer part 13 and will become something else, but for as long as it remains cohesive it is part 13. The fact that tomorrow it make become something else does not make what it is today any less valid, and what it is today does not make what it might become tomorrow any less valid. And at every point in time it is a real physical non cultural non political thing, it does not require culture or politics to exist, it simply has to be. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2017, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/43 "2017-02-25T22:58:52Z")
> [@Weisshund](#): > > India is it’s own plate, still maintains independance from both eurasia and australia > > Arabia is it’s own plate, its a secondary plate because of landmass, it is still independent of the plates surrounding it. > > Eurasia is considered a single entity, at this time, because it’s parts currently appear to be locked together in a cohesive unit. I have no idea what you are trying to convey here, since you directly contradict yourself. Eurasia does not correspond to a single tectonic entity or a cohesive unit, since as you yourself say India and Arabia are on separate plates. You can’t have it both ways. I’m not even going to try to figure out the rest of your post. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/44 "2017-02-26T23:44:55Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I have no idea what you are trying to convey here, since you directly contradict yourself. Eurasia does not correspond to a single tectonic entity or a cohesive unit, since as you yourself say India and Arabia are on separate plates. You can’t have it both ways. > > I’m not even going to try to figure out the rest of your post. I think his post is pretty clear (if somewhat ungrammatical). He’s defining continents by tectonic plates. So Eurasia would be a single tectonic entity which would not include Arabia or India. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/45 "2017-02-27T01:26:18Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I have no idea what you are trying to convey here Might be easier if you just take the play-doh and follow along. It’s not both ways, there is India, Arabia, Eurasia 3 different entities. I am pretty sure i did not contradict anything but if i did, can you show me where? Trust me, get the play-doh, its easier visually ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/46 "2017-02-27T02:57:09Z")
Of course the chunks of earth moving across the globe are real. And indeed we should come up with words to give them names. We have. The following is the list of words that mean “chunks of earth moving across the globe”: [ul] [li]Tectonic plates[/li][/ul] The following is a list of words that are used to name the largest of the individual chunks of earth moving across the globe: [ul] [li]Pacific plate[/li][li]North American plate[/li][li]Eurasian plate[/li][li]African plate[/li][li]Antarctic plate[/li][li]Indo-Australian plate[/li][li]South American plate[/li][/ul] The following is a list of words that do NOT refer to chunks of earth moving across the globe, either generically or individually (PLEASE NOTE THIS LIST IS INCOMPLETE): [ul] [li]countries[/li][li]states[/li][li]pants[/li][li]Antarctica[/li][li]eggs Benedict[/li][li]Alaska[/li][li]China[/li][li]bookshelf[/li][li]North America[/li][li]Asia[/li][li]Benedict Cumberbatch[/li][li]continents[/li][li]Africa[/li][li]Eurasia[/li][li]Fiscal Year 2007-2008[/li][/ul] The words in that list refer to things that are not chunks of earth moving across the globe. If you need to refer to a chunk of earth moving across the globe, please see one of the previous lists. Of course, you are perfectly free to refer to one of the chunks of earth moving across the globe as “Benedict Cumberbatch,” or to refer to all of them as such. Just be aware that this will likely cause confusion, as everyone else uses that word to refer to something else entirely. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2017, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/47 "2017-03-01T16:15:17Z")
A thin band of crust several thousand miles long by not even a hundred (I think) miles across rifted off the north side of Gondwana during the Carboniferous and migrated north across the Tethys Ocean, dividing it in two as it went, until the remnant Tethys on its north coast was closed up and sutured when it spread itself all over the south coast of Laurasia. And Cimmeria was its name. Now Cimmerian terranes can be traced sandwiched in from Anatolia on the west andgoing through Iran, Tibet (Lhasa is Cimmerian), Burma & Thailand, through Southeast Asia’s Tenasserim range (which is the continent-terrane suture) to the tip of Malaysia on the east. This was well before India departed Gondwana and headed northeast to join Asia. > [@](#): > > In 1974, after extensive field work in the Middle East, Swiss geologist Jovan Stöcklin identified the northern foot of the Alborz Range in northern Iran as the suture which in the Paleozoic was the northern shore of Gondwana and the remains of Paleo-Tethys Ocean. Stöcklin also noted that an early Mesozoic or late Paleozoic rift separated the Iranian Plate from the Arabian Plate, and that another southern suture must be the remains of the Neo-Tethys Ocean. The opening of this later ocean, Stöcklin realized, must have transformed Iran into a microcontinent. Those observations made Stöcklin the first to identify a small part of what would later be known as Cimmeria. > Stöcklin also noted that his proposal resembled the old concept of the world in which there were two continents, Angaraland in the north and Gondwana in the south, separated by an elongated ocean, the Tethys. Iran belonged to neither continent but was part of the realm of Tethys. Stöcklin’s southern suture was later confirmed by observations of the evolution of microflora in Iran, which had a Gondwanan affinity during the Carboniferous but a Eurasian affinity during the Late Triassic – Iran had clearly drifted from Gondwana to Laurasia. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2017, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/48 "2017-03-01T22:37:50Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think his post is pretty clear (if somewhat ungrammatical). He’s defining continents by tectonic plates. So Eurasia would be a single tectonic entity which would not include Arabia or India. I’m sorry, his post is just incoherent. In his third sentence, he doesn’t make it clear what he means by “Eurasia,” whether that’s the traditional continent including India and Arabia, or whether he is just referring to just the plate. Until he actually clarifies that, it’s pointless to speculate on what he actually might mean. > [@Weisshund](#): > > Might be easier if you just take the play-doh and follow along. > > … > > Trust me, get the play-doh, its easier visually But of course your analogy is not anything like an accurate model of how tectonic plates work. That may be why you appear to misunderstand this so profoundly. Tectonic plates can fuse to one another in some circumstances, but in the case of (the continent of) Eurasia they have not. _Eurasia is not moving as a cohesive unit._ Arabia and India are colliding with it and causing constant earthquakes. And you are still ignoring the fact that Siberia is part of the North American plate. > [@](#): > > It’s not both ways, there is India, Arabia, Eurasia > 3 different entities. > I am pretty sure i did not contradict anything but if i did, can you show me where? So are you saying that India and Arabia are also continents? Then is California a separate continent from North America? Are Honduras and Nicaragua their own continent? How about Panama? Is Siberia part of the Eurasian continent, or is it part of North America? ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2017, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/49 "2017-03-03T04:51:14Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I’m sorry, his post is just incoherent. In his third sentence, he doesn’t make it clear what he means by “Eurasia,” Yes, actually i do, and now you are simply purposely pretending not to get it, which is annoying. > [@](#): > > But of course your analogy is not anything like an accurate model of how tectonic plates work. > > That may be why you appear to misunderstand this so profoundly. Tectonic plates can fuse to one another in some circumstances, but in the case of (the continent of) Eurasia they have not. Eurasia does, the pieces dont roam about independently, hence it being referrenced as such > [@](#): > > _Eurasia is not moving as a cohesive unit._ Arabia and India are colliding with it and causing constant earthquakes. It is, and how would that fact preclude other units from ramming into it? If i hit the Australian plate with the Antarctic plate, there would be an earthquake too. Does it change anything? no, so what are you on about? > [@](#): > > And you are still ignoring the fact that Siberia is part of the North American plate. Hmm, i believe it you scroll back up you will notice that i said part of the north american plate is smashed into Asia, and part of it is a lovely floating island that isnt very green at all. > [@](#): > > So are you saying that India and Arabia are also continents? Then is California a separate continent from North America? Yes, they are, how many times are you going to ask the same question? Part of California is not North America yes, DUH! Part of it is pacific plate, it is not a continent because… Bueller? Bueller? The majority of the plate is Ocean, so part of California is ocean, which is convenient, because someday that part may decide to return home perhaps. Hollywood likes the idea anyways. > [@](#): > > Are Honduras and Nicaragua their own continent? How about Panama? Oh good lord wtf?? Honduras is a COUNTRY, there is no HONDURAN PLATE Can you not tell the difference between a POLITICAL COUNTRY and a TECTONIC PLATE? :smack: Honduras sits on the carribean plate, which is… Ocean! Why? Oh perhaps because like 80% of it is Ocean Floor it is in great company with Nicaragua. It has a next door neighbor… The PANAMA PLATE, oh my look a country named after a plate, or is it a plate named after a country? It does not matter they are 2 different things, and you do not seem to grasp that, did you play with the damned Play-Doh?? Costa Rica and Panama ride on the same plate, and NO it is not ocean. Why? Because micro plate as it may be, It’s at least half land But hey, it’s after 2012, so that might change ☹ > [@](#): > > Is Siberia part of the Eurasian continent, or is it part of North America? wtf?? Seriously?? It’s BOTH OH Lord the sky is falling, the world will end, a Political region of the earth is on 2 tectonic plates at the same time. I mean come on man what the hell, really? It’s a joke and you’re doing it unpurpose right:confused: ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2017, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/50 "2017-03-05T11:43:31Z")
Does anybody else think Cimmeria is a cool microcontinent? When I lived in Malaysia near Kuala Lumpur—which is on Cimmerian terrane—I went upcountry into hill stations of Pahang—Genting Highlands and Fraser’s Hill—which are not only beautiful high-altitude rainforest biomes, I got to walk on a continental suture, the Malaysian extension of the Tenasserim Range, known as the [Titiwangsa Mountains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titiwangsa_Mountains), from the Jurassic [Cimmerian orogeny](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimmerian_Orogeny). At the eastern tip of Cimmeria. A spur of the Titiwangsa called Bukit Kiara rose above my neighborhood, covered with forest and always wreathed in mists. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2017, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/51 "2017-03-05T11:50:55Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > A thin band of crust several thousand miles long by not even a hundred (I think) miles across > rifted off the north side of Gondwana during the Carboniferous > and migrated north across the Tethys Ocean, > dividing it in two as it went, until the remnant Tethys on its north coast was closed up > and sutured > when it spread itself all over the south coast of Laurasia. > And Cimmeria was its name. “…clap…clap…R I A and Cimmeria was its name-o.” ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2017, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/52 "2017-03-05T18:45:25Z")
**Weisshund** , why did you reply to **Colibri** and not me? Why do you understand that you can have a plate named after a country even though the plate and the country are two different things, but you don’t understand that you can have a plate named after a continent even though the plate and the continent are two different things? And now you’re saying that because part of California (the part where I live, in fact) is on a largely oceanic plate, that part of California actually _is_ ocean? You’re saying my house is in the ocean? That’s preposterous. No one who speaks English natively would say such a thing. You are free to use words that way if you like, but don’t pretend you are speaking standard English. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2017, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/53 "2017-03-05T21:06:32Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > **Weisshund** , why did you reply to **Colibri** and not me? Why do you understand that you can have a plate named after a country even though the plate and the country are two different things, but you don’t understand that you can have a plate named after a continent even though the plate and the continent are two different things? Huh? a name is a name, name it what you like, i understand it fine i have no idea why you think otherwise, you guys seem to be the ones hung up on names. Why didn’t i reply to you? maybe because this is the first time i see you? Sorry, don’t take it personally. Here, I am replying to you > [@](#): > > And now you’re saying that because part of California (the part where I live, in fact) is on a largely oceanic plate, that part of California actually _is_ ocean? You’re saying my house is in the ocean? That’s preposterous. No one who speaks English natively would say such a thing. You are free to use words that way if you like, but don’t pretend you are speaking standard English. What are you? a joker too? If that is where your house is, YES your little house is sitting on a piece of Pacific plate, which is oceanic plate. You get two things, you get Continental plates, which comprise mostly of exposed land and you get Oceanic plates which comprise mostly of Ocean. So your house sits on the Pacific plate Do you happen to notice that nearly the entire thing is under the ocean? Your house is sitting in a place when it is colliding with the north american plate and subducting. Where ever the oceanic Pacific plate goes, so goes your house. In 1906 your house moved 20 feet in less than 60 seconds. Fine perhaps not your house if it is not that old, but your yard did. If your house stands long enough, one day it will find San Franciso and LA sitting next to each other, and traffic will be hell on earth, but by then hopefully traffic wont be needed. IF, and i say if because plates can’t just go off in some arbitrary direction, there isn’t any open hole for them to do so, they have to move around like a big sliding puzzle kind of, but IF the pacific plate could arbitrarily decide to go floating off west, your house would probably become a submarine because there would no longer be the forces that cause your front yard to be above sea level. What it really will do in 200 300 million years from now? I am not sure, maybe cease to exist, maybe get bigger, depends on how the pieces move and what forces are in place So you house sits in a place that belongs to the Pacific Ocean, which isn’t preposterous it just simply is, just like part of Asia as man defines it, is actually part of north america as the earth defines it. So your house is not sitting on the continental blob of mass known as the north american plate, how is it you find that horrible or offensive? ---
**Author:** ![sear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sear)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/54 "2017-03-06T06:28:18Z")
> [@](#): > > ``` > Continents-Manmade? (Multi-page thread 1 2) > > ``` NNnnnnoooooooooooo !! Not “continents”! Condiments! Relish the difference! 8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888 Bonus question: In some texts I’ve read “Gondwanaland”. In other texts I’ve read “Pangaea”. Are these different names for the same land-mass? Or do they refer to different geological periods? ---
**Author:** ![scoots](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b77776/32.png) [@scoots](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scoots)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/55 "2017-03-06T09:33:33Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > OTOH, no man is an island! Apart from the Isle of Man ---
**Author:** ![Teuton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teuton/32/3864_2.png) [@Teuton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teuton)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/56 "2017-03-06T11:31:33Z")
> [@sear](#): > > Bonus question: > In some texts I’ve read “Gondwanaland”. > In other texts I’ve read “Pangaea”. > > Are these different names for the same land-mass? > Or do they refer to different geological periods? “Pangaea” refers to a ‘supercontinent’ which contained pretty much all the land in the world in one solid mass, and it looked [like this.](http://phasesexperimental.weebly.com/uploads/6/9/1/2/6912443/8967840.gif?329) Pangaea broke up into two lumps, [Laurasia and Gondwana](https://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-photo-continental-drift-on-the-planet-earth-pangaea-laurasia-gondwana-modern-continents-197268569.jpg), before continuing to split into the continents we see today. [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_3068230539&feature=iv&src_vid=UwWWuttntio&v=ovT90wYrVk4) is one of many videos that show continental drift happening. I always enjoy watching India. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/57 "2017-03-06T14:04:35Z")
**Weisshund** , why don’t you scroll up and read my first post? There is no language in which the word _ocean_ refers to the part of an oceanic plate that sticks out above the water. An oceanic plate is no more an ocean than a dinner plate is something you eat . ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/58 "2017-03-06T14:12:52Z")
Furthermore, oceanic plates have some continental crust on them, and vice versa. You may as well call the Gulf of Mexico a continent since it’s on the North American Plate. And some continental crust is below water and some oceanic crust is above water. ---
**Author:** ![sear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sear)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/59 "2017-03-06T14:46:32Z")
T #56 Oh. Thanks. I once read that for those that want an approximation of how fast continents drift, check the growth rate of your own finger nails. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119/60 "2017-03-09T22:57:53Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Furthermore, oceanic plates have some continental crust on them, and vice versa. They have some above water crust, yes. We can’t call it a continent, not in a literal sense, because it has X amount of stuff that is defined otherwise than land. Figuratively of course, one could call it “continent” because it may well be touching the side of the actual continent for 130 million years, which is a whole lot of human life spans, no one would ever be born to see it touching and then not touching, unless they lived through some sci-fi end of world geologic event. So its real easy to look at it and say it all looks like one big piece to me, and that is a fine way to look at it for the average persons day to day life view point, it will never be otherwise in that persons life time. But that is the “Manmade” part, the earth has different ideas. And yes, there is Continent, in what would appear in sailing terms to be sea or ocean. I mean, that is a lot of water between North America, the place people live, and Asia, the place people live etc. And yet, it’s the one same big chunk with some very low areas. But the unit as a whole has X amount of what is defined as land, so it gets called continent as far as geologic things go. > [@](#): > > You may as well call the Gulf of Mexico a continent since it’s on the North American Plate. And some continental crust is below water and some oceanic crust is above water. Correct, in plate terms the area is part of the continent. The Gulf of Mexico is a body of ocean connected salt water in a low elevation part of the North American continental plate, which happens to include Mexico, part of Asia, and a Big island that aint green, and a nice chunk of a little island that ain’t ice. That is not to say it does not have a nice body of salt water on it. At one time, the north america plate sagged down the center of the part we call “North America” And it got a big inland sea way for a bit, now someone is planting corn there because it lifted back up. But it had a really nice shallow salt water area on it for a good period of time. It was still continent though, by definition. Interesting thing, if what we believe is correct. All the objects we define as continental, have always been, at least since about 3bya, apparently before that we were auditioning for the part of Hell in the movie spawn. [Interesting image](http://i.imgur.com/NF6G6h9.jpg) Imagine the Gulf vacation possibilities [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/continents-manmade/780119.md?page=2)