Pangea summary

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Below is the article summary. For the full article, see Pangea.

Pangea , or Pangaea, Hypothetical protocontinent proposed by Alfred Wegener in 1912 as part of his theory of continental drift. Pangea (from Greek: pangaia, “all earth”) supposedly covered about half the Earth and was completely surrounded by a world ocean called Panthalassa. Early in the Jurassic Period (approximately 200 million to 146 million years ago), Pangea began to break apart. Its segments, Laurasia (composed of all the present-day northern continents) and Gondwana (the present-day southern continents) gradually receded, resulting in the formation of the Atlantic and Indian oceans.

Watch Earth's continents move, from 650 million years ago to 250 million years in the future

continental drift Summary

Continental drift, large-scale horizontal movements of continents relative to one another and to the ocean basins during one or more episodes of geologic time. This concept was an important precursor to the development of the theory of plate tectonics, which incorporates it. The idea of a

Permian Period Summary

Permian Period, in geologic time, the last period of the Paleozoic Era. The Permian Period began 298.9 million years ago and ended 252.2 million years ago, extending from the close of the Carboniferous Period to the outset of the Triassic Period. At the beginning of the period, glaciation was

Triassic Period Summary

Triassic Period, in geologic time, the first period of the Mesozoic Era. It began 252 million years ago, at the close of the Permian Period, and ended 201 million years ago, when it was succeeded by the Jurassic Period. The Triassic Period marked the beginning of major changes that were to take

plate tectonics Summary

Plate tectonics, theory dealing with the dynamics of Earth’s outer shell—the lithosphere—that revolutionized Earth sciences by providing a uniform context for understanding mountain-building processes, volcanoes, and earthquakes as well as the evolution of Earth’s surface and reconstructing its