Following a decade during which its presence was widely accepted, the existence of the putative Ediacaran supercontinent Pannotia has come into question since the turn of the millenium, largely due to the geochronology of Ediacaran-Cambrian orogens, which suggests that the supposed landmass had begun to break up well before it was fully assembled. Paleomagnetic data from this time interval have been used to both support and refute the existence of Pannotia, but are notoriously equivocal. Proxy signals for Ediacaran-Cambrian supercontinent assembly and breakup, although collectively compelling, can be individually challenged, and efforts to detect the mantle legacy expected of supercontinent amalgamation, while promising, are inconclusive. Yet the existence of Pannotia is central to the nature, duration and evolution of the supercontinent cycle, and dictates the cycle’s geodynamic pathway from the breakup of Rodinia to the assembly of Pangea. Hence, the question of Pannotia’s existence, like that of Hamlet, is one of fundamental importance and demands far more attention than it has hitherto received.

在其存在被广泛接受的十年之后，推定的埃迪卡拉纪超大陆 Pannotia 的存在自千禧年以来受到质疑，主要是由于地质年代学埃迪卡拉纪 - 寒武纪造山带，这表明假定的陆地在完全组装之前就已经开始分裂。这个时间间隔的古地磁数据已被用来支持和反驳 Pannotia 的存在，但以模棱两可着称。埃迪卡拉纪-寒武纪超大陆组装和分裂的代理信号，尽管集体令人信服，但可能会受到单独的挑战，而且检测超大陆合并预期的地幔遗产的努力虽然很有希望，但尚无定论。然而，Pannotia 的存在对超大陆旋回的性质、持续时间和演化至关重要，并决定了该旋回从 Rodinia 分裂到组装的地球动力学路径。盘古大陆。因此，潘诺蒂亚的存在问题，就像哈姆雷特的问题一样，是一个至关重要的问题，需要比迄今为止得到的更多关注。