Continental Drift: 200 Million Years of Movement

About two hundred million years ago, all of Earth's continents were joined together in a single landmass called Pangaea.Pangaea was a supercontinent that contained all of Earth's landmasses, surrounded by a vast ocean called Panthalassa.To understand when Pangaea existed, let's look at Earth's timeline. Pangaea formed about 300 million years ago and began breaking apart about 200 million years ago.This is how Pangaea might have looked - a single large landmass surrounded by the Panthalassa ocean.Multiple lines of evidence support Pangaea's existence. One of the most compelling is fossil evidence.Fossils of Mesosaurus, a freshwater reptile, have been found in both South America and Africa. Since Mesosaurus couldn't cross the Atlantic Ocean, these continents must have been connected.Another key piece of evidence is the jigsaw-like fit of continental coastlines. This is especially noticeable between South America and Africa.Similar rock formations across different continents also support Pangaea's existence. The same distinct rock layers can be found on continents now separated by oceans.The formation of Pangaea was the result of plate tectonic processes occurring over hundreds of millions of years, as smaller continents collided and merged together.The breakup of Pangaea began approximately 175 million years ago during the Jurassic period.This process started with rifting between North America and Africa, creating what would eventually become the central Atlantic Ocean.Massive volcanic eruptions accompanied this initial separation, leaving evidence in the form of large igneous provinces.By about 150 million years ago, Pangaea had split into two major landmasses:Laurasia in the north, containing North America, Europe, and Asia, and Gondwana in the south, containing South America, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, and India.This separation continued with India breaking away from Gondwana around 125 million years ago and beginning its rapid northward journey.The process of continental drift occurs at rates of only a few centimeters per year—about the same rate that your fingernails grow.