Pangaea: The Supercontinent That Once United All Landmasses

The Most Recent Supercontinent

Pangaea (also spelled Pangea) was the supercontinent that incorporated nearly all of Earth's continental crust during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras, approximately 335 to 175 million years ago.

Formation and Breakup

• Assembly: Completed by the Late Permian (~335 Ma) through successive collisions of earlier continents (Laurentia, Baltica, Gondwana, etc.).
• Breakup: Began in the Early Jurassic (~200 Ma) with the opening of the Central Atlantic; continued through the Cretaceous, forming the modern Atlantic, Indian, and Arctic Oceans.

Evidence

• Geometric fit of continental shelves (not coastlines)
• Matching rock sequences, mountain belts, and fossil distributions across now-separated continents
• Paleomagnetic data confirming past latitudes

Legacy

Pangaea's fragmentation set the stage for modern biogeography, ocean circulation, and climate patterns. It was neither the first nor the last supercontinent—cycles of assembly and dispersal (the "supercontinent cycle") have occurred roughly every 300–500 million years throughout Earth's history.