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Pangaea (from the Greek for, "all lands") is the name Alfred Wegener used to refer to the supercontinent that existed during the Mesozoic era, before the process of plate tectonics separated the component continents. Pangæa broke up about 200 million years ago. When the continents first came together to form Pangæa, mountains were formed, and some of these ranges still exist, such as the Appalachians, the Atlas Mountains, and the Urals. The vast ocean that surrounded Pangæa is called Panthalassa.
Pangea was a C-shaped landmass that spread across the equator. The body of water that existed within the "C" has been named the Tethys Sea. Because Pangea was so big, the inland was very dry due to the lack of precipitation. The large continent would have allowed land animals to migrate from the South Pole to the North Pole.
The mantle under its former location was still hot and trying to rise upward. As a result, AfricaAfrica is the world's second-largest continent in both area and population, after Asia. 30,244,050 km2 (11,677,240 mi2) including the islands, it covers 20. 3% of the total land area on Earth, and with over 800 million human inhabitants it accounts for ar sat several tens of meters higher than the other continents.
Pangaea was probably not the first "supercontinent." It's believed that PannotiaPannotia was a supercontinent firstly described by Dalziel in 1997 which existed from about six hundred million years ago to about five hundred forty million years ago. About 750 million years ago, the previous supercontinent Rodinia rifted apart into thr formed about 600 million years ago and split up 550 million years ago. Also, RodiniaIn geology, Rodinia is used to refer to a supercontinent that formed and broke up in the Neoproterozoic. Rodinia is thought to have formed about 1000 million years ago and to have embodied most or all of Earth's existing continental crust. Rodinia is thou had formed approximately 1100 million years ago and divided 750 million years ago.
During the JurassicThe Jurassic period is a major unit of the geologic timescale that extends from about 135 million years BP at the end of the Triassic to 195 million years BP at the beginning of the Cretaceous. As with other geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period, Pangæa broke into two parts: