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Pangaea was C-shaped, with the bulk of its mass stretching between Earth's northern and southern polar regions and surrounded by the superocean Panthalassa and the Paleo-Tethys and subsequent Tethys Oceans. Pangaea is the most recent supercontinent to have existed and the first to be reconstructed by geologists.
Panthalassa, also known as the Panthalassic Ocean or Panthalassan Ocean (from Greek πᾶν "all" and θάλασσα "sea"), [1] was the vast superocean that encompassed planet Earth and surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea, the latest in a series of supercontinents in the history of Earth.
Because Pangaea is the most recent of Earth's supercontinents, it is the best known and understood. Contributing to Pangaea's popularity in the classroom, its reconstruction is almost as simple as fitting together the present continents bordering the Atlantic ocean like puzzle pieces. [4]
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.
The Central Atlantic magmatic province (CAMP) is the Earth's largest continental large igneous province, covering an area of roughly 11 million km 2.It is composed mainly of basalt that formed before Pangaea broke up in the Mesozoic Era, near the end of the Triassic and the beginning of the Jurassic periods.
The Mesozoic Era [3] is the era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods.It is characterized by the dominance of gymnosperms such as cycads, ginkgoaceae and araucarian conifers, and of archosaurian reptiles such as the dinosaurs; a hot greenhouse climate; and the tectonic break-up of Pangaea.
In North America it shows as later phases of the Acadian orogeny. This was happening at around the Equator during the later Carboniferous, forming Pangaea with Avalonia near its centre but partially flooded by shallow sea. [14] In the Jurassic, Pangaea split into Laurasia and Gondwana, with Avalonia as part of Laurasia. [15]
Mesozoic marine revolution begins: increasingly well adapted and diverse predators stress sessile marine groups; the "balance of power" in the oceans shifts dramatically as some groups of prey adapt more rapidly and effectively than others. 250 Ma Triadobatrachus massinoti is the earliest known frog. 248 Ma