9725386 Opdyke During the late Paleozoic most of the southern hemisphere continents were joined into a "supercontinent" called Gondwana , that subsequently collided with Europe and Asia to form Pangea, which itself dispursed during the Mesozoic. During the late Carboniferous, Gondwana was still a coherent block, therefore all paleomagnetic poles from rocks of this age should align if the age and magnetic data are robust and the reconstruction of the paleogeography is covert. Recently determined late Carboniferous poles in Australia do not match poles from the same aged sediments in Africa that were determined 30 years ago. This project will restudy these rocks to determine if the age and magnetism data re in error, or if the plate reconstructions of Gondwana are in error. Results are expected to clarify and resolve this perplexing mis-match in these poles, which will read to a more robust reconstruction of Gondwana.
