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Pangaea or Pangea (/ p æ n ˈ dʒ iː. 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 ...
Plate tectonics (from Latin tectonicus, from Ancient Greek τεκτονικός (tektonikós) 'pertaining to building') [ 1 ] is the scientific theory that Earth 's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. [ 2 ][ 3 ][ 4 ] The model builds on the concept of continental ...
Pelso Plate – Small tectonic unit in the Pannonian Basin in Europe. Timor Plate – Microplate in Southeast Asia carrying the island of Timor and surrounding islands. Tisza Plate – Tectonic microplate, in present-day Europe. Juan de Fuca Plate – Small tectonic plate in the eastern North Pacific – 250,000 km 2.
Opening of Central and North Atlantic from 170 Ma to the present. The opening of the North Atlantic Ocean is a geological event that has occurred over millions of years, during which the supercontinent Pangea broke up. As modern-day Europe (Eurasian Plate) and North America (North American Plate) separated during the final breakup of Pangea in ...
Pangaea Proxima (also called Pangaea Ultima, Neopangaea, and Pangaea II) is a possible future supercontinent configuration. Consistent with the supercontinent cycle, Pangaea Proxima could form within the next 250 million years. This potential configuration, hypothesized by Christopher Scotese in November 1982, earned its name from its ...
Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a mid-ocean ridge (a divergent or constructive plate boundary) located along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, and part of the longest mountain range in the world. In the North Atlantic, the ridge separates the North American from the Eurasian Plate and the African Plate, north and south of the ...
Moving under the forces of plate tectonics, supercontinents have assembled and dispersed multiple times in the geologic past. According to modern definitions, a supercontinent does not exist today; [ 1 ] the closest is the current Afro-Eurasian landmass, which covers approximately 57% of Earth's total land area.
Map of Pangaea with modern continental outlines. The supercontinent cycle is the quasi-periodic aggregation and dispersal of Earth's continental crust.There are varying opinions as to whether the amount of continental crust is increasing, decreasing, or staying about the same, but it is agreed that the Earth's crust is constantly being reconfigured.