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Plate tectonic and paleogeographic maps by C.R. Scotese, PALEOMAP Project. For more information visit: https://www.earthbyte.org/paleomap-paleoatlas-for-gplates & www.globalgeology.com . Read more about the methods used here .
- Overview
- Formation
- Geography
- Breakup
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Pangea existed between about 299 million years ago (at the start of the Permian Period of geological time) to about 180 million years ago (during the Jurassic Period). It remained in its fully assembled state for some 100 million years before it began to break up. The concept of Pangea was first developed by German meteorologist and geophysicist Alfred Wegener in 1915.
plate tectonics
Read more about the formation and fragmentation of Pangea.
What is a supercontinent?
A supercontinent is a landmass made up of most or all of Earth’s land. By this definition the landmass formed by present-day Africa and Eurasia could be considered a supercontinent. The most recent supercontinent to incorporate all of Earth’s major—and perhaps best-known—landmasses was Pangea. Supercontinents have coalesced and broken apart episodically over the course of Earth’s geological history. Scientists suggest that the next supercontinent capable of rivaling Pangea in size will form some 250 million years from now, when Africa, the Americas, and Eurasia collide.
plate tectonics
The assembly of Pangea’s component landmasses was well underway by the Devonian Period (419.2 million to 358.9 million years ago) as the paleocontinents Laurentia (a landmass made up of the North American craton—that is, the continent’s stable interior portion) and Baltica (a landmass made up of the Eastern European craton) joined with several smal...
Pangea was C-shaped, with the bulk of its mass stretching between Earth’s northern and southern polar regions. The curve of the eastern edge of the supercontinent contained an embayment called the Tethys Sea, or Tethys Ocean. The Paleo-Tethys Ocean took shape during Pangea’s initial assembly phase. This ocean was slowly replaced by the Neo-Tethys Ocean after a strip of continental material known as the Cimmerian continent, or the Cimmerian superterrane, detached from northern Gondwana and rotated northward.
On the periphery of Pangea was Cathaysia, a smaller continent extending beyond the eastern edge of Angara and comprising the landmasses of both North and South China. Cathaysia lay within the western Panthalassic Ocean and at the eastern end of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean. Both oceans also contained scattered fragments of continental crust (microcontinents), basaltic volcanic island arcs, oceanic plateaus, and trenches. These island arcs and other isolated landmasses were later welded onto the margins of Pangea, forming accreted terranes (landmasses that collide with continents).
The assembly of the various large landmasses into the supercontinent led to the development of extensive dry climates in the supercontinent’s tropics during Permian times. As low-latitude seaways closed, warm surface ocean currents were deflected into much higher latitudes (areas closer to the poles), and cool-water upwelling developed along Pangea’s west coast. Extensive mountain-building events (or orogenies) occurred where the continents collided with one another, and the newly created high mountain ranges strongly influenced local and regional terrestrial climates. East-west atmospheric flow in the temperate and higher latitudes was disrupted by two high mountain chains—one in the tropics oriented east-west and one running north-south—that diverted warm marine air into higher latitudes.
These developments may have contributed to the series of mass extinction events that took place near the end of the Permian Period. Paleoecologists have posited that continental collisions eliminated several shallow-water marine basins—the primary habitat of most marine invertebrates—and Pangea’s north-south orientation, which drastically changed ocean circulation patterns, altered regional climates. In addition, by the end of the Permian Period, land largely prevented cooler waters near the poles from entering the Paleo-Tethys and Neo-Tethys basins, which may have raised water temperatures in shallow areas above the tolerance limits of corals and other organisms (see also Permian extinction).
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The mechanism for the breakup of Pangea is now explained in terms of plate tectonics rather than Wegener’s outmoded concept of continental drift, which simply stated that Earth’s continents were once joined together into the supercontinent Pangea that lasted for most of geologic time. Plate tectonics states that Earth’s outer shell, or lithosphere, consists of large rigid plates that move apart at oceanic ridges, come together at subduction zones, or slip past one another along fault lines. The pattern of seafloor spreading indicates that Pangea did not break apart all at once but rather fragmented in distinct stages. Plate tectonics also postulates that the continents joined with one another and broke apart several times in Earth’s geologic history.
The first oceans formed from the breakup, some 180 million years ago, were the central Atlantic Ocean between northwestern Africa and North America and the southwestern Indian Ocean between Africa and Antarctica. The South Atlantic Ocean opened about 140 million years ago as Africa separated from South America. About the same time, India separated from Antarctica and Australia, forming the central Indian Ocean. Finally, about 80 million years ago, North America separated from Europe, Australia began to rift away from Antarctica, and India broke away from Madagascar. India eventually collided with Eurasia approximately 50 million years ago, forming the Himalayas.
Pangea was a supercontinent that incorporated almost all the landmasses on Earth until about 200 million years ago. Learn about its formation, geography, breakup, and paleoclimate from Britannica's experts.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Pangaea was a supercontinent that existed from 335 to 200 million years ago, before drifting apart into the present continents. Learn about the origin, evidence and formation of Pangaea, and see maps of its evolution and distribution.
Explore the history of Pangea and the continental drift with this interactive map. See how the continents shifted over time and learn about the evidence of plate tectonics.
7 de abr. de 2023 · Learn about Pangea, the ancient supercontinent that broke up to form the present-day continents. Explore the origin, formation, and breakup of Pangea, and see maps and images of its evolution.
- Diptarka Ghosh
Mapa de Pangeia. Animação mostrando separação da Pangeia. Designa-se por Pangeia ou Pangea o continente que, descrito pela deriva continental, existiu entre 200 a 540 milhões de anos, durante a era Paleozoica, segundo estudos.
A “ Pangeia ” (do grego Pan “todo”, e Gea ou Geia, “terra”) que significa “ Toda a Terra ”, foi uma colossal massa sólida que formava um único continente, o qual era cercado por um único oceano, o Pantalassa.
