The supercontinent Pangaea

Also called: Pangea

The supercontinent formed when Gondwana and Laurasia collided, gathering almost all the Earth’s land into one. Ringed by the great ocean Panthalassa, it began to break apart about 200 million years ago.

About 335 million years ago, in the Carboniferous, the great southern continent of Gondwana (today’s South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia and India) collided with the northern continent (North America and Europe). The Appalachians and Europe’s Variscan mountains rose along the join, and Siberia soon docked as well, raising the Urals. The supercontinent that gathered nearly all the Earth’s land is called Pangaea, “all land”.

Pangaea stretched from pole to pole, surrounded by the great ocean Panthalassa, with the Tethys Sea cutting deep into its eastern side; its interior, far from the sea, was a vast desert. About 200 million years ago North America and Africa began to pull apart, opening the Atlantic, and Pangaea split into Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south. The name Pangaea was coined by Alfred Wegener, who proposed continental drift in 1912.