Pangea is the mainland that we know about, relying only on the hypotheses and assumptions of scientists. This name was given to the continent 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 from all sides by the ocean called Pantalassa. What happened to our planet? And how did the continents known to us arise? With the hypotheses of scientists answering these questions, you will become acquainted with the following article.
Why do continents fall apart?
Everything in this world is changeable - even the continents, which, it would seem, are solidly frozen in place, can change their location.
The word "pangea" in translation from 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. So, after a certain amount of time, the familiar arrangement of modern continents will also become different.
The age 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 red-hot earth's core and the rotation of the planet itself, necessarily break up and form in a new way. This is a cyclic process that is necessarily repeated.
The emergence of Pangea
Huge areas of the continental crust formed on the planet about 2.7 billion years ago. The Earth’s land merged into a single supercontinent, forming the first mainland - 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 period, the structural plan of the Earth began to change. About 2.3 billion years ago, the first Pangea collapsed.
The new (second) Pangea was formed at the end of the early Proterozoic, about 1.7 billion years ago. Then the divided land was again soldered 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 emerge, a prototype of the Tetris ocean was outlined, which divided the continents into a southern and northern grouping. And during the Paleozoic, the formation of the third Pangea was completed.
Laurasia and Gondwana - who whom?
There is a version that Pangea is the mainland that arose during the collision of the continents of Gondwana and Laurasia. At the site of the collision, two of the oldest mountain systems formed: the Appalachian Mountains 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 part of the land that was in the north. Scientists call this process self-absorption.
The collision of the two most powerful supercontinents led to the emergence of a lot of tension in the very center of the 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 existed Gondwana and Laurasia, which mated with each other for as much as 200 million years, and when the surface could not stand it, they again broke up.
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 in their mass extinction.
All rocks that formed at this time are assigned to the Paleozoic group. This definition was first introduced by the famous geologist from England Adam Sedgwick.
Pangea is a continent with a low temperature, because the processes that occurred during its emergence led to the fact that the difference in temperature of the poles and the equator was significant.
The emergence of living organisms
The bulk of living organisms inhabited the sea. Organisms flooded all possible habitats, capturing fresh water and shallow water. At first, these were herbivorous organisms: tablates, archaeocytes, bryozoans.
During this period, many classes and types of different living things arose. At the very beginning, all living organisms lived in the seas, and cephalopods were the most developed among them .
When the last - Permian - Paleozoic period began, primitive mammals already lived on the land, which was abundantly covered with forests. It was at this time that warm-blooded reptiles began to emerge.
The period of the greatest extinction of living organisms
At the end of the Paleozoic era, its final stage, the Permian period, began. It was at this time that extinction occurred, which scientists consider the largest in the entire history of the Earth.
Before that, Earth was inhabited by bizarre life forms: prototypes of dinosaurs, sharks and reptiles of enormous size.
For unknown reasons, about 95% of all living species of organisms have died out. The most important consequence of the formation and decay of Pangea was the extinction of hundreds of invertebrate species, which gave rise to changes in the Earth's population with various new species of plants and animals.
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: South America, Hindustan, Australia, Africa and Antarctica. The composition of Laurasia included the current territories of Asia, Europe, Greenland and North America.
All continents we know from the geographical map are fragments of the ancient supermaterial. For millions of years, the split of land continued to grow inexorably, which led to the formation of the continents of our time. The formed space was filled with the waters of the oceans, which over time was divided into 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 look closely at the globe, the continents on it form fragments of an entertaining puzzle. Visually, you can see that the continents in separate places are ideally connected together.
The hypothesis of scientists that the continents used to be one whole can be checked with the help of simple manipulations. To do this, it is enough to take a world map, cut out the continents and compare them with each other.
When you attach Africa and South America to each other, you will see that the contours of their shores are almost everywhere compatible. You can observe a similar situation with North America, Greenland, Africa and Europe.
In 1915, Alfred Wegener, a meteorologist who studied and analyzed paleontological and geographical data for many years, came to the conclusion that the Earth was previously a single continent. It was he who called this continent Pangea.
Wegner’s hypothesis has been neglected for many years. Only 40 years after the death of a German scientist, his assumptions that the continents are constantly drifting were recognized by official science. The supercontinent Pangea really existed and collapsed under the influence of external and internal factors.
Forecasts of scientists 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 the time has elapsed since the change in location of the continents. And this means that after about 250 million years the Earth will change again: a new Pangea Ultiam will appear, which will include: Africa, Australia, Eurasia, both America 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 history of our planet. This cyclic process repeats every 500 million years. We must know and study the history of the first continent of Pangea in order to have an idea of what the future awaits the Earth.