Pangea is a continent that we know about based only on the hypotheses and assumptions of scientists. This name was given to the mainland that existed since the birth of our planet, which, according to the hypotheses of the geological past of the Earth, was the only one and was washed on all sides by an ocean called Panthalassa. What happened to our planet? And how did the continents known to us arise? You will get acquainted with the hypotheses of scientists answering these questions later in the article.
Why are continents falling apart?
Everything in this world is changeable - even the continents, which seem to be firmly frozen in place, can change their location.
The word "pangea" in ancient Greek means "all land". According to scientists, Pangea is a continent that broke up and was divided by ocean waters about 180 million years ago.
There are suggestions that before this phenomenon the continents were different. Scientists argue that under the influence of certain factors, the location of land and water masses on Earth is inexorably changing. This means that aftera certain amount of time, the arrangement of modern continents familiar to us will also become different.
The age of existence of the continents, according to experts studying the geological past of our planet, is about 80 million years. Over time, the continents, under the influence of heat emanating from the hot core of the earth and the rotation of the planet itself, necessarily break up and form in a new way. This is a cyclical process that must be repeated.
The Emergence of Pangea
Huge areas of continental crust formed on the planet about 2.7 billion years ago. The land of the Earth merged into a single supercontint, forming the first continent - Pangea. This was the first formation of the mainland, where the thickness of the earth's crust was almost the same as in modern continents - 40 km.
During the Proterozoic, the structural plan of the Earth began to change. About 2.3 billion years ago, the first Pangea broke up.
New (second) Pangea formed at the end of the early Proterozoic, about 1.7 billion years ago. Then the separated land masses again merged into one supercontinent.
Under the influence of various factors, the continental crust again began to change its location. The Pacific Ocean appeared, the outlines of the North Atlantic began to take shape, the prototype of the Tetris Ocean was outlined, which divided the continents into southern and northern groups. And during the Paleozoic period, the formation of the third Pangea was completed.
Laurasia and Gondwana - who wins?
There is a version that Pangea is a continent that arose duringcollision of the continents of Gondwana and Laurasia. At the site of the collision, two of the most ancient mountain systems were formed: the Appalachians and the Urals. This did not end there, the lithospheric plates continued to move towards each other, as a result of which the plume of the former southern continent moved under the part of the land that was in the north. Scientists call this process self-absorption.
The collision of two powerful supercontinents has caused great tension in the very center of Pangea they created. Over time, this tension only intensified, which caused another break. Some scientists put forward the version that Pangea did not exist - it was Gondwana and Laurasia that grappled with each other for as much as 200 million years, and when the surface could not stand it, they broke up again.
Features of the Paleozoic period
It was during the Paleozoic that Pangea became a single supercontinent. The duration of the period is about 290 million years. This period was marked by the appearance of a variety of living organisms, and ended with their mass extinction.
All the rocks that formed at this time are assigned to the Paleozoic group. This definition was first introduced by the famous English geologist Adam Sedgwick.
Pangea is a continent with a low temperature, because the processes that occurred during its formation led to the fact that the difference in temperatures between the poles and the equator was significant.
The appearance of living organisms
The main part of living organisms inhabited the seas. Organisms filled every possible placehabitats, capturing fresh water bodies and shallow water. At first they were herbivorous organisms: tabulates, archaeocyates, bryozoans.
During this period, many classes and types of different living beings arose. At the very beginning, all living organisms lived in the seas, and the most developed among them were cephalopods.
When the last - Permian - period of the Paleozoic began, primitive mammals already lived on land, which was abundantly covered with forests. It was at this time that warm-blooded animal reptiles began to emerge.
The period of the greatest extinction of living organisms
At the end of the Paleozoic era came its final stage - the Permian period. It was at this time that the extinction occurred, which scientists believe is the largest in the history of the Earth.
Before that, the Earth was inhabited by bizarre life forms: prototypes of dinosaurs, sharks and huge reptiles.
For unknown reasons, about 95% of all living species of organisms became extinct. The most important consequence of the formation and collapse of Pangea was the extinction of hundreds of species of invertebrates, which gave rise to changes in the population of the Earth with various new species of plants and animals.
The division of Pangea
250 million years ago, Pangea once again split into two continents. Gondwana and Laurasia appeared. The split occurred in such a way that Gondwana united in itself: South America, Hindustan, Australia, Africa and Antarctica. Laurasia included the current territories of Asia, Europe, Greenland and NorthAmerica.
All the continents we know from the geographical map are fragments of an ancient supercontinent. For millions of years, the land split has inexorably continued to grow, which led to the formation of the continents of our time. The resulting space was filled with the waters of the World Ocean, which eventually was divided into the Atlantic and Indian.
A whole piece of land was divided into North America and Eurasia, and between them lay the Bering Strait.
Geographic puzzle
If you take a closer look at the globe, the continents on it form, as it were, fragments of an entertaining puzzle. Visually, you can see that the continents in some places are ideally connected together.
The hypothesis of scientists that the continents used to be one can be verified with simple manipulations. To do this, just take a map of the world, cut out the continents and compare them with each other.
When you put Africa and South America together, you will see that the contours of their coasts are almost everywhere compatible. You can observe a similar situation with North America, Greenland, Africa and Europe.
In 1915, Alfred Wegener, a meteorological scientist who had studied and analyzed paleontological and geographic data for many years, concluded that the Earth had previously been a single continent. It was he who named this continent Pangea.
Wegner's hypothesis was ignored for many years. Only 40 years after the death of the German scientist, his assumptions that the continents were constantly drifting wererecognized as official science. The supercontinent Pangea really existed and disintegrated under the influence of external and internal factors.
Scientists' predictions for the future
Recall that, according to the existing theory of scientists, every 500 million years, all existing continents form one continent in the process of connection. It is estimated that half of the time since the change in the location of the continents has already passed. And this means that in about 250 million years the Earth will change again: a new Pangea Ultiam will appear, which will include: Africa, Australia, Eurasia, both Americas and Antarctica.
From the foregoing, we can conclude that the history of the formation and collapse of the ancient continent is one of the most important and most significant stages in the entire history of our planet. This cyclical process repeats every 500 million years. We must know and study the history of the existence of the first continent of Pangea in order to have an idea of what the future holds for the Earth.
