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Pangaea or Pangea (/ p æ n ˈ dʒ iː ə / pan-JEE-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 ...
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 the early Cenozoic Era, [1] they formed the North Atlantic Ocean.
One of these rift valleys was inundated with ocean water and became the young Atlantic Ocean. Volcanism related to the tectonic processes fracturing Pangaea also left deposits in the eastern US. [59] At the end of the Triassic another mass extinction occurred. [58] Globally, this extinction event wiped out roughly one quarter of families.
Apparently, Pangea broke apart at about the speed fingernails grow. Geophysicists just debunked a key assumption about how Earth's continents formed Skip to main content
How did it break up into the world we know today? Let's find out But 250 million years ago, those continents may have been one giant supercontinent called, Pangaea.
Pangaea's supercontinent cycle is a good example of the efficiency of using the presence or lack of these entities to record the development, tenure, and break-up of supercontinents. There is a sharp decrease in passive margins between 500 and 350 Ma during the timing of Pangaea's assembly.
The first nonmarine sediments in the rift that marks the initial break-up of Pangaea, which separated eastern North America from Morocco, are of Late Triassic age; in the United States, these thick sediments comprise the Newark Supergroup. [18] Rift basins are also common in South America, Europe, and Africa.
Pangea broke apart after 70 million years. The supercontinent was torn apart through fragmentation, which is where parts of the main landmass would break off in stages. There were two main events that led to the dispersal of Pangea. The first was a passive rifting event that occurred in the Triassic period.