Pangæa
- This article is about the supercontinent. For other uses, see Pangaea (disambiguation).
Pangaea (from the Greek for, "all lands") is the name Alfred Wegener used to refer to the supercontinent that existed during the Mesozoic era, before the process of plate tectonics separated the component continents. Pangæa broke up about 200 million years ago. When the continents first came together to form Pangæa, mountains were formed, and some of these ranges still exist, such as the Appalachians, the Atlas Mountains, and the Urals. The vast ocean that surrounded Pangæa is called Panthalassa.
Pangea was a C-shaped landmass that spread across the equator. The body of water that existed within the "C" has been named the Tethys Sea. Because Pangea was so big, the inland was very dry due to the lack of precipitation. The large continent would have allowed land animals to migrate from the South Pole to the North Pole.
The mantle under its former location was still hot and trying to rise upward. As a result, Africa sat several tens of meters higher than the other continents.
Pangaea was probably not the first "supercontinent." It's believed that Pannotia formed about 600 million years ago and split up 550 million years ago. Also, Rodinia had formed approximately 1100 million years ago and divided 750 million years ago.
During the Jurassic period, Pangæa broke into two parts:
bg:Пангея da:Pangæa de:Pangäa es:Pangea fa:هام زمین fr:Pangée (continent) he:פנגיאה nl:Pangea ja:パンゲア大陸 pl:Pangea sl:Pangea sv:Pangea