What does "microcontinent" mean?

a fragment of continental crust that has cleaved off its parent tectonic plate.

What is a synonym for "microcontinent"?

Common synonyms include: subcontinent.

Microcontinent

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
a fragment of continental crust that has cleaved off its parent tectonic plate.
"Seychelles can first be considered to have existed 62 mya when the Seychelles microcontinent split from India as a result of intense activity in the Carlsberg ridge which started 64 mya[…]"

Synonyms

All synonyms

subcontinent

Example

More examples

"Seychelles can first be considered to have existed 62 mya when the Seychelles microcontinent split from India as a result of intense activity in the Carlsberg ridge which started 64 mya[…]"

Etymology

From micro- + continent.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.