At school, you should have been told about the fact that once there was only one continent on our planet, and that it was simply huge, and inhabited by the most incredible creatures that can no longer be found. It is not so easy to imagine modern continents, collected into one single land, like giant puzzles! Even more surprising is how powerful prehistoric earthquakes and tectonic shifts were, that they even destroyed ancient Pangea and made 6 separate continents out of it at once.
Scientists have done a lot of research on Pangea, but they still have many questions. Moreover, if the theory of continental drift did not exist, the concept of a supercontinent might never have appeared at all. Here is a list of 10 amazing facts about Pangea that not everyone knows about.
Why did Pangea even appear and why did it split?
Scientists still have two important questions about the Pangea supercontinent. How and why did our practical continent form, and why did it split into several parts? The answers to these questions were not all that obvious. Scientists still cannot accept one general version of the development of events, since there are several worthy theories at once.
Most researchers believe that the whole thing is in the earth's mantle. Probably, the tectonic plates shifted due to the heating of the mantle from radioactive decay, which caused the formation of Pangea, and then its split into separate continents.
Such processes do not occur all the time, which is why it took the supercontinent so long to form and split. It's incredible how much power the Earth's mantle contains, and how much it influenced the appearance of our planet as we know it today.
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Great rift valley
Not far from Kenya, there is a whole chain of deep crevices that seem to tear the land apart. This area is called the Great Rift Valley or the East African Rift, and it looks both terrifying and enchanting. The land is literally split in half here, which even resembles some spectacles from action films.
Once in the region of this unique valley there were roads and houses, but they were swallowed up long ago by the East African Rift. Perhaps such tectonic activity indicates the resumption of the formation of a supercontinent similar to Pangea. Would you be interested in witnessing something like that?
So how is this valley related to Pangea? Naturally, a supercontinent, such as Pangea once was, will not appear on our planet soon. However, the emergence of new gorges confirms the theory of the existence of Pangea and the theory of continental drift, and also helps to shed light on what the supercontinent will look like in millions of years.
Fossil evidence
Prehistoric fossils also help scientists understand what life was like on Pangea millions of years ago. Nowadays, we all know that in North America elephants can only be found in the zoo, and polar bears do not live in Africa. Some animals simply do not belong in countries with unsuitable climates and terrain. However, archaeologists have come across fossils that have survived since the time of the Pangea practical continent, and these findings confirm that once upon a time, almost the same creatures could be found throughout the Earth, although today the flora and fauna on different continents has obvious differences. It turns out that it was possible to find some fossil remains for only one simple reason - all continents were once connected by a single land, and they were not separated by the waters of the World Ocean.
Cynognathus was an ancient reptile, and he lived on our planet even during the Triassic period, that is, when Pangea existed. Scientists have found the remains of this animal in South America and Africa. Lystrosaurus were other terrestrial reptiles, and their remains have been found in India, Antarctica and Africa. If these lands were not part of a single Pangea, the discovery of prehistoric remains of Lystrosaurs in such distant places would be simply impossible. Archaeological evidence clearly points to the validity of the theory of the existence and division of Pangea.
Panthalassa
We all know that there are 5 oceans on Earth: the Arctic, Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Southern. All of these oceans are enormous and occupy most of our planet. At the time of Pangea, almost all the same amount of water was in one single ocean, which modern scientists call Panthalassa.
Since the earth's land was once a single practical continent of Pangea, only one ocean surrounded its shores. This means that the currents in that prehistoric ocean were completely different - not the same as today.
According to experts, the Pantalassa currents were supposed to move at a greater depth. In addition, scientists suggest that there was no such significant ebb and flow during the time of Pangea. This giant single ocean was supposed to be very calm, and the temperature of the water in it should not be as different as in the modern world.
Functioning of new oceans
When Pangea began to split into different continents, the movement of water in the ocean changed. The split of the practical continent into different continents not only divided the ancient ocean of Panthalassus, but it also caused the emergence of completely new oceanic currents.
These currents began to move in a circle from west to east, which had never happened before under Panthalass. In addition, the distribution and distribution of cold and warm water has also changed. As the oceans became more fragmented, currents became increasingly difficult to move and mix warm water with cold water, and this significantly affected water temperatures in different parts of the world.
Climate
Researchers believe that the central parts of the modern continents were very arid, and that during the existence of Pangea, it hardly rained there.
All this resembles the climate of a desert, and this phenomenon was due to the fact that these territories were surrounded by high mountains, which held back the influx of rain clouds to certain regions. Thanks to the discovery of coal deposits in certain places, scientists came to the conclusion that part of the land of Pangea, which was closest to the equator, was covered by tropical rain forests. It is difficult to imagine how different the climate was on the prehistoric supercontinent. It seems even more incredible how, with the help of such a seemingly insignificant find, specialists are able to figure out what life was like on our planet in the most ancient times.
Mass extinction
Even now, a huge number of animals are on the verge of extinction. However, we have not yet witnessed the disappearance of most species at once in one short period of time. Mass extinctions are rare, but have occurred in the past and will continue in the future.
At the time of Pangea, the mass extinction occurred about 252 million years ago. This period was called the "Mass Permian Extinction", and after it, among the survivors were creatures that became relatives of modern birds. The first species of dinosaurs also appeared around the same years.
Cycles of supercontinents
You probably already understood that today our planet looks completely different from the time of Pangea. However, the researchers are confident that the current appearance of the Earth will not be eternal, and that in the future a huge supercontinent like Pangea will appear on it again.
Throughout the history of the Earth, continents have converged and diverged, sometimes forming super-continents, but again splitting them into pieces, so that in the future this will surely happen again. Already now Australia is gradually approaching Asia, which actually indicates the possibility of a future supercontinent emerging here.
How long does it take to form such a massive landmass, and can we see it with our own eyes? Such a process can take from 300 to 400 million years, and then about the same amount of time is needed to divide the new supercontinent into several smaller dry land. In general, not only us, but also our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, of course, will not be able to witness something like this.
Animal world
Pangea could remind us of a picture of an extraterrestrial world from a movie, if we could move into the Permian period in the blink of an eye. In those years, life on our Earth was completely different from the modern life to which we are so accustomed. There were many different animals living on Pangea, and most of them were very different from the modern fauna. For example, Traversodontidae were a family of herbivores that were thought to be the ancestors of today's mammals, and there were especially many of them during the time of Pangea. By the way, even then all kinds of beetles and dragonflies scurried about everywhere.
During the Triassic period, the first archosaurs appeared on Earth, which eventually became the ancestors of modern crocodiles and birds. At the end of the Triassic period, as we mentioned earlier, dinosaurs also inhabited our planet. However, those new dinosaurs did not look quite the same as in Jurassic Park.
Researchers believe that these dinosaurs had very porous bones, and that they were covered with feathers, and not scales like reptiles are familiar to us. Most of the species that lived on Earth during the existence of the Pangea supercontinent, just became the progenitors of modern fauna.
The name "Pangea"
Pangea is not only a very strange, but also a very symbolic name for the practical continent. In 1912, a meteorologist named Alfred Wegener became the first scientist to come up with the idea of supercontinents. He worked on the theory of continental drift, and this study led him to the idea that once upon a time on Earth there must have been either a few larger continents or one huge supercontinent. But why did he decide to call the very first of them Pangea?
The word "pangea" comes from the Greek word "pangaya" meaning "the whole earth." This name was just perfect for the supercontinent, which is discussed in our selection, because once Pangea was just a single land, and all the lands were then collected in one place. Of course, Wegener faced fierce criticism of his theory, but without his fundamental work on the theory of continental drift and on the concept of Pangea, we would not have at our disposal as much evidence in favor of these ideas as we already have. Wegener's assumptions are no longer in doubt today.