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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 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.
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.
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.
The simulation lets us see that some continents split up more dramatically than others, including North America and Africa, which started coming apart pretty rapidly some 200 million years ago and ...
According to J.D.A. Piper, Rodinia is one of two models for the configuration and history of the continental crust in the latter part of Precambrian times. The other is Paleopangea, Piper's own concept. [19] Piper proposes an alternative hypothesis for this era and the previous ones.
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.
Pangea began to break up about 220 million years ago, in the early Mesozoic (late Triassic period). As Pangea rifted apart a new passive tectonic margin was born, and the forces that created the Appalachian, Ouachita, and Marathon Mountains were stilled. Weathering and erosion prevailed, and the mountains began to wear away.