The Main Events that Happened During The Famous Supercontinent Pangea

The famous Supercontinent Pangea was split into four main stages: Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. This article will state the main events or main ideas of what happened in each period. The Permian PeriodThe permian period was the final period of the paleozoic era, lasting from approximately 299 million years ago to 251 million years ago. This period affected many different organisms from many different environments, but it mainly affected marine life; specifically invertebrates. Some groups survived the Permian mass extinction with extremely decreased numbers, But they would never reach the ecological dominance they had before.

On land, a smaller extinction occurred, clearing out many diapsids and synapsids, making room for other species to dominate, which is now known as the “Age of Dinosaurs”. In plant life, forests of fern-like plants called gymnosperms, plants with their offspring enclosed within seeds. The permian period was a time of major changes, and earth was never the same after it.The Triassic PeriodThe triassic period began at the end of the paleozoic era, and the beginning of the Mesozoic era, lasting from about 254 million years ago to 206 million years ago. Pangea didn’t start to break up until the middle of the triassic period, forming Gondwana (South America, Africa, India, Antarctica, and Australia) in the south and Laurasia (North America and Eurasia-Europe and Asia) in the north.

The movements that created these two supercontinents was due to the sea floor spreading at the mid ocean ridge lying at the bottom of the Tethys Sea, the body of water between Gondwana and Laurasia. As Pangea broke apart, mountains started to form on the west coast of what will eventually be North America by subduction of the ocean plates beneath the continental plates. Towards the late triassic period, mountains continued to form along the coast from Alaska to Chile. As mountains were forming in North and South America, North Africa was being split from Europe by the spreading rift. This division of the continents started going west, eventually splitting eastern North America from North Africa.The Jurassic PeriodThe Jurassic Period was the second piece of the Mesozoic Era. It occurred from 199.6 to 145.5 million years ago.

During the Jurassic Period, Pangea split apart. The northern half, known as Laurentia, was splitting into masses that would eventually form North America and Eurasia, creating spaces for the central Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. The southern half, called Gondwana, was drifting into an eastern segment that would form Antarctica, Madagascar, India and Australia, and a western portion that would form Africa and South America. This separating, along with warmer global temperatures, allowed for diversity and dominance of the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs may have been the dominant land animals, but they weren’t alone. Early mammals were mostly small herbivores or insectivores and were not competition to larger reptiles. The Adelobasileus, a shrew-like animal, had the differential ear and jaw bones of a mammal and dates from the late Triassic.The Cretaceous PeriodThe Cretaceous Period was the last and longest piece of the Mesozoic Era.

It lasted about 79 million years, from 145.5 million years ago to 65.5 million years ago. IN the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, the continents were in extremely different positions than they are today. Sections of Pangea were starting to drift apart, with the Tethys Ocean still separating Laurasia from Gondwana. The north and south Atlantic were still closed. By the end of this period, the continents were much closer to what they are today, Africa and South America formed their shapes; but India still hadn’t collided with Asia and Australia was still a part of North America.