Katana VentraIP

Pangaea

Pangaea or Pangea (/pænˈ.ə/)[1] was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras.[2] It assembled from the earlier continental units of Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during the Carboniferous approximately 335 million years ago, and began to break apart about 200 million years ago, at the end of the Triassic and beginning of the Jurassic.[3] In contrast to the present Earth and its distribution of continental mass, Pangaea was C-shaped, with the bulk of its mass stretching between Earth's northern and southern polar regions and surrounded by the superocean Panthalassa and the Paleo-Tethys and subsequent Tethys Oceans. Pangaea is the most recent supercontinent to have existed and the first to be reconstructed by geologists.

For other uses, see Pangaea (disambiguation).

History of Earth

Potential future supercontinents: , Novopangaea and Amasia

Pangaea Ultima

Supercontinent cycle

Wilson Cycle

Archived 2009-01-05 at the Wayback Machine

USGS Overview

Map of Triassic Pangaea at Paleomaps

NHM Gallery