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When did Australia begin to separate from Antarctica?
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Pangea
Distribution of landmasses, mountainous regions, shallow seas, and deep ocean basins near the end of the Permian Period. Included in the paleogeographic reconstruction are the locations of the interval's subduction zones.
Australia began to rift away from Antarctica approximately 80 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous Period.1
While rifting processes between the two continents had initiated earlier in the Late Jurassic Period, the separation culminated and transitioned into seafloor spreading during the Late Cretaceous. This movement eventually led to the isolation of Australia as it drifted northward, a process that continues today.23