From the single landmass of Pangaea to the opening of the Atlantic and India’s collision with Asia that raised the Himalaya — with the great extinctions and the dinosaurs along the way, and Wegener, who first said the continents move
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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 252 million years ago immense volcanic eruptions in Siberia wiped out more than 80–90% of marine species and many land vertebrates — the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history.
The earliest dinosaurs appeared in the Late Triassic, about 230 million years ago — Eoraptor and Herrerasaurus from Ischigualasto, Argentina, are the best known.
About 200 million years ago North America and Africa began to pull apart, opening the Atlantic; Pangaea split into Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south.
The southern continent of Gondwana split up: the South Atlantic opened between South America and Africa, India headed north, and Antarctica and Australia drifted apart.
Sixty-six million years ago an asteroid about 10 km across struck what is now the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. Dust and soot darkened the sky, and the non-bird dinosaurs and about three-quarters of all species vanished.
Racing north, India began to collide with Asia about 50 million years ago, raising the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau. India is still pushing north today.
The German meteorologist Alfred Wegener first presented his theory that the continents were once joined and have since drifted apart; half a century later it was accepted as plate tectonics.
German meteorologist and polar explorer who proposed continental drift in 1912; never accepted in his lifetime, he died on an expedition across the Greenland ice sheet