50 Fun Facts About Pangaea

The name Pangaea comes from ancient words meaning what?

It combines pan, 'all, entire', with Gaia, the Earth or Mother Earth.

Which German scientist put forward the continental drift hypothesis in 1912?

He was primarily a meteorologist and polar researcher; mainstream geology did not accept his idea until the 1960s.

Wegener's 1915 book expanding the theory was titled, in English, what?

In it he called the single landmass the Urkontinent; the name Pangaea appears just once in the 1920 edition.

Pangaea finished assembling from Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during which geological period?

That was about 335 million years ago; it began to break apart around 200 million years ago at the end of the Triassic.

What letter shape did Pangaea resemble?

The Tethys Ocean sat inside the curve, and a single vast superocean surrounded the rest.

What was the name of the vast superocean that surrounded Pangaea?

Its name means 'all sea'; at about 250 million years ago it covered almost 70% of Earth's surface.

The northern of Pangaea's two great landmasses was called what?

The name is a portmanteau of Laurentia and Eurasia; it split from the southern mass when the supercontinent broke up.

Which Austrian geologist named Gondwana after a region of India?

The Sanskrit root means 'forest of the Gonds'; some prefer 'Gondwanaland' to keep the continent distinct from the region.

Roughly what fraction of today's continental area consists of former pieces of Gondwana?

Its remnants include South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, Zealandia, Arabia and the Indian subcontinent.

The Tethys Ocean, inside the supercontinent's curve, preceded which modern sea?

It also gave rise to the Indian Ocean, while the Black and Caspian Seas are remnants of the later Paratethys.

The Tethys Ocean is named after a figure from which mythology?

Tethys was a water goddess, sister and consort of Oceanus and mother of the Oceanid sea nymphs.

Who may have first suggested, in 1596, that the continents were once joined and torn apart?

In his Thesaurus Geographicus he wrote that the Americas were 'torn away from Europe and Africa by earthquakes and floods'.

Antonio Snider-Pellegrini's 1858 maps of the continents fitted together attributed their separation to what?

He also proposed that the Earth changed size dramatically at the time of Noah.

Wegener originally proposed what as the mechanism driving continents apart?

The mechanism was implausible; a British geologist later proposed mantle convection, which fitted far better.

Which English geologist proposed in 1931 that convection cells in the mantle move the crust?

He championed drift when it was deeply unfashionable and gave it a chapter in his bestselling Principles of Physical Geology.

The Appalachians and which European range are thought to have formed one chain across Pangaea?

Together they were the Central Pangean Mountains, which the Variscan orogeny raised to Himalayan scale.

At their peak 295 million years ago, the Central Pangaean Mountains rivalled which range?

They had largely eroded away by the Middle Triassic, long before the supercontinent split.

Fossils of the freshwater reptile Mesosaurus are found only in Brazil and which other region?

A small aquatic reptile could not have crossed an ocean, so the split distribution is classic evidence for the joined continents.

Glossopteris, whose fossils helped tie Gondwana together, was what kind of plant?

Its tongue-shaped leaves give it its name; the forests died out in the end-Permian extinction.

Lystrosaurus, found from South Africa to Antarctica, is notable for what?

The pig-sized herbivore had just two tusk-like teeth and a horny beak; its fossils dominate Early Triassic beds worldwide.

Which South African geologist's 1937 book Our Wandering Continents proposed two original supercontinents?

He had crossed the Atlantic specifically to test his predictions that the geology of South America matched South Africa.

Matching glacial deposits on separate continents point to a late Paleozoic ice cap over which part of Pangaea?

Gondwana sat near the South Pole, and glaciers formed in Antarctica, India, Australia, southern Africa and South America.

What was the climate like in Pangaea's vast interior?

Far from the sea, it probably formed one of the most extensive desert systems in Earth's history.

The Permian–Triassic 'Great Dying' wiped out roughly what share of marine species?

It also killed about 70% of land vertebrate species; the Siberian Traps eruptions are the accepted main cause.

Which mass extinction is linked to the Central Atlantic magmatic province, erupted about 201 million years ago?

Covering about 11 million square kilometres, it is Earth's largest continental large igneous province.

Where did the first rifting of Pangaea begin?

Rifting then ran along eastern North America and northwest Africa; the South Atlantic did not open until the Cretaceous.

After separating from Madagascar, India moved north toward Eurasia at what plate-tectonic record speed?

Its collision closed the eastern Tethys and raised the world's highest mountains; Australia and India now move northeast at 5 to 6 cm a year.

Where does the break-up of Pangaea continue today?

Australia is meanwhile on a collision course with eastern Asia.

Which supercontinent existed from about 1.3 billion to 750 million years ago, before Pannotia?

Its name comes from the Russian for 'motherland'; its breakup may have triggered the Snowball Earth glaciations.

The supercontinent Columbia, assembled around 2.0 to 1.8 billion years ago, is also known by what name?

It was first proposed in 2002 by John Rogers and M. Santosh and is sometimes called Hudsonland.

What did Valentine and Moores originally call the Precambrian supercontinent they recognised in 1970, renamed in 1990?

The 1990 renaming took a Russian word for 'motherland', and came with the first plate reconstruction.

How long is one complete supercontinent cycle thought to take?

The shorter Wilson Cycle, named for John Tuzo Wilson, describes the opening and closing of a single ocean basin.

By one proposed definition, a supercontinent must hold at least what share of existing continental crust?

By that measure no supercontinent exists today; Afro-Eurasia covers about 57% of Earth's land area.

What is Christopher Scotese's supercontinent, expected in about 250 million years, now called?

He dropped 'Ultima' because it implied it would be the last one; he has also called the whole exercise 'pretty much fantasy'.

Roy Livermore's proposed future supercontinent Novopangaea assumes the closure of which ocean?

In that scenario Australia docks with East Asia and North America while Antarctica drifts north.

Wegener died in 1930 during his fourth expedition to which place?

He was returning from the ice-cap station Eismitte with a Greenlandic companion; his body was found six months later, marked by his upright skis.

Wegener and his brother Kurt set a record in 1906 in what activity?

They stayed aloft 52.5 hours testing meteorological instruments and a celestial navigation method.

Which meteorologist was Wegener's father-in-law and co-author of a book on ancient climates?

Köppen is best known for his climate classification system; the 1924 book was The Climates of the Geological Past.

Which Princeton geologist and wartime naval captain used his ship's echo sounder to map the ocean floor and later proposed seafloor spreading?

He discovered flat-topped undersea volcanoes he called guyots; his 1962 History of Ocean Basins became hugely cited.

What pattern on the ocean floor, mirrored either side of mid-ocean ridges, clinched the case for seafloor spreading?

They record reversals of Earth's magnetic field as new crust forms; Vine, Matthews and Morley explained them.

Why did Marie Tharp draw the first scientific map of the Atlantic floor from shore?

For 18 years Heezen gathered data aboard the ship Vema while Tharp plotted it, revealing the rift valley down the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge spreads at an average rate of about how much per year?

Plate motions range from fingernail-growth speed at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge to hair-growth speed for the Nazca plate.

Which island country sits directly on top of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge?

The Azores, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha also lie on or near the ridge; in Iceland it is called the Neovolcanic Zone.

How many major tectonic plates does Earth's lithosphere have, depending on how they are defined?

Plus many minor plates; the Ring of Fire hosts most of the world's active volcanoes.

The Appalachians began forming about 480 million years ago, making them what?

They once stood as tall as the Alps and Rockies before 240 million years of erosion wore them down.

Which ocean closed when Baltica and Laurentia merged into Euramerica in the Ordovician?

The collision at the end of the Ordovician raised the northern Appalachians, the first step in building Pangaea.

Which mountain range formed when western Kazakhstania hit Baltica in the late Carboniferous?

The Uralian orogeny closed the Ural Ocean and created Laurasia, the final step in assembling Pangaea.

Which orogeny built the Central Pangaean Mountains when northwest Africa met Euramerica?

The same collision created the southern Appalachians, Morocco's Meseta and the Mauritanides.

At the 500-fathom contour, the Atlantic coastlines misfit by less than how far?

The close fit of the Americas with Europe and Africa was noticed almost as soon as the coasts were charted.

Which Ordovician microcontinent carried pieces of Newfoundland, Britain and New England north?

It broke from Gondwana around 480 million years ago and drifted toward Laurentia.