>North America is anything north of the South American continent >proper.
>Thus "Central America" is not a true continent, just eh >southern expanse
>of North America.
Interesting tidbit- part of Central America, from just below the Yucatan
Peninsula south to the current Panama-Colombia boundary, lies on a
geological plate known as the Caribbean Plate. This plate has a different
origin than both the North American AND South American plates... and
considering the correspondence between zoogeographic patterns and geological
history (see Chris' previous post and the map at the URL below), maybe we
should rethink the old NA/SA paradigm. At the very least, kids should at
least be given the most up to date data we've got as early as possible- and
not spoon-feed them erroneous info "because they're too young to
understand." Learning plate tectonics instead of geopolitical gobbledygook
just makes more sense...
Check out http://pubs.usgs.gov/publications/text/slabs.html
cheers,
Dave
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