Earth and Environment Atlas

How The Planet Works
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Geological Formations

Land bridge

Structural and Tectonic Formations

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

A land bridge is an isthmus or other land connection joining two otherwise separate landmasses, letting plants and animals migrate between them. Most form when falling sea levels during an ice age expose part of the continental shelf, though some, like the Isthmus of Panama, arise instead from tectonic uplift. The Bering Land Bridge periodically linked Alaska and Siberia as ice-age sea levels fluctuated, and the Isthmus of Panama's emergence roughly three million years ago opened the Great American Biotic Interchange between North and South America.

Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.