The present theory for the formations of the Earth’s oceans has long been a discussion of curiosity and mystery. The current accepted explanation for these contained areas in which the great oceans reside is hypothesized as being formed as a side effect of Plate Tectonics. However other more exotic theories, such as the Fission Theory for the formation of the Earth’s Moon, have purported the formation of the Pacific Ocean basin as being carved from via a colossal separation of part of the Earth being flung off into outer space. This Fission Theory, suggested by George Darwin in 1898, was eventually dismissed under a flurry of arguments against its plausibility. In 1946, Reginald Daly revised Darwin’s theory with his own conjecture. Daly hypothesized the Moon’s formation resulted from the coalesced debris due to the impact of a cosmic collision with an asteroid. Later in 1975, William Hartmann and Donald Davis supported similar conceptual presentations for an impact with the Earth, but on a much grander scale. Notably none of these collision theories attempted to pursue the notion of any relationship to the formation of the Pacific Ocean basin. But this would not to be the end of this purported association.

There has long been two theories touted without any relevant association to each other; i.e., the Theory of Plate Tectonics (or the Pangaea Theory of Continental Drift) and the Giant Impact Hypothesis (one of five theories for the formation of the Moon).  The introduction of the Pangaea Theory by Alfred Wegener in 1920, envisioned the landmass for Earth an island in the midst of a water-world planet. An association for these two theories was presented in 1986 via a little known dissertation published with the Library of Congress ‘The Evolutioning of Creation.’ This paper was later published as a book in two volumes under the same title, the first volume in 2004 and the other in 2011. At the end of chapter 4 of the first volume, the Giant Impact Hypothesis was provided as the rationale for not only the formation of the Pacific Ocean, but also as the originating cause for the creation for Plate Tectonics and stimulus for Continental Drift.

To bridge this association, rationale was provided to explain the eventual distribution of geologic features demonstrated on the planet. Prior to this catastrophic impact, the Earth was more swamp land than water; the remnant of planetary accretions developed through the Solar System. Then upon the cosmic collision of impact, the Earth’s upper mantle was scrapped off, exposing a magma ocean that would become the Pacific Plate. The force of this impact was powerful enough to jar the insides of the Earth, and force a planetary crack (opposite of this great punch) that would become the Atlantic Ridge. We see the results of this catastrophe in still abiding geologic features:  For the Pacific - the remnant of the large magma ocean (a scabbed over wound that continually oozes pushing towards the west coastline of the present day Americas), the Ring of Fire about the Pacific Ocean, the mountainous terrain just outside the circumference of the large crate (surrounding the Pacific), the pulverized debris that makes up the pacific basin and coastlines; For the Atlantic – The remnant of the large rift from North Pole to South Pole, the distribution of diamond deposits being pushed to the Earth’s surface, the rocky makeup of the Atlantic coastline and region. This Giant Impact initiated and defined the stimulus for both plate tectonics and continental drift. It was a collision that brought about a defining change in the Earth’s interior dynamics and exterior atmosphere.

Still there remains continuing discussion as to such an association because the current Pangaea supercontinent is conjectured to have only come into its own some 300 million years ago. There is evidence that the Earth's Moon formed 4,450 million years ago, just 50 million years after the formation of our present day solar system. While a slow procession of Continental Drift should be enough to justify this association, the supercontinent, Pangaea, is seen only as one of multiple reincarnations for planetary plate tectonics as envisioned by paleontologists and geologists alike. If there were alternative reasoning for the current hypothesis of preceding supercontinents, the research could be brought more in align with a more singular perspective of an evolving Pangaea supercontinent. So while the concept of a direct association between the Pangaea Theory and the Giant Impact Hypothesis has all but been dismissed, there still remains the undiscovered mystery for how this cause and effect may have really played out. Still what I find truly amazing from all these facts is the tenacity and resilience of our planet.