Re:Largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island
by bee_rider on Friday April 14, 2023 @08:45AM
(#35568930)
The continental plate based definition seems to include a number of splits they are not widely considered continents. I mean I’ll happily combine Europe and Asia into Eurasia, and India is clearly a continent, but an Arabian continent doesn’t seem to be brought up much at all, and I’ve never heard of somebody listing “a bit of Central America” when talking about the continents.
Re:Largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island
by iso1631 on Friday April 14, 2023 @09:14AM
(#35569239)
Asia (Or Eurasia, or Africa/Eurasia) comprise multiple tectonic plates, as does America (or North/South America). Is the area south of the Himalayas a separate continent from the area north because they're on different plates? What continent is Iceland in? Or Japan, much of which is on the North American plate.
There's no clear definition and there's far to much political and cultural meaning in the definition of a continent so any definition involving the term is going to be ambiguous.
There is a widely accepted difference between islands and continents in terms of geology. Continents are often considered to be the largest landmass of a particular continental plate; this holds true for Australia, which sits on its own continental lithosphere and tectonic plate (the Australian Plate).
By contrast, islands are usually seen as being extensions of the oceanic crust (e.g. volcanic islands), or as belonging to a continental plate containing a larger landmass (continental islands); the latter is the case of Greenland, which sits on the North American Plate.