Spotting a Supercontinent: How Pangea Was Discovered

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Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. </div> <div class="label mt-20 mb-10">Select Citation Style</div> <select class="js-citation-format-select form-select"> <option selected value="mla">MLA</option> <option value="apa">APA</option> <option value="chicago">Chicago Manual of Style</option> </select> <div class="citation font-serif border rounded p-15 mt-20" data-authors="John P. 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Rafferty</div> <div class="editor-description font-12 font-serif mt-5 clamp-description text-black">John P. Rafferty writes about Earth processes and the environment. He serves currently as the editor of Earth and life sciences, covering climatology, geology, zoology, and other topics that relate to...</div> </a> <div data-popper-arrow></div> </div> <span class="btn btn-link editor-link p-0 qa-byline-link gtm-byline font-12 byline-contributor text-decoration-underline"> John P. Rafferty</span></div> <div class="font-serif font-12 text-gray-700"> <span class="qa-fact-checked-by">Fact-checked by</span> <div class="editor-popover popover p-0"> <a class="d-block p-20 font-12" href="/editor/The-Editors-of-Encyclopaedia-Britannica/4419" > <div class="editor-title font-16 font-weight-bold">The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica</div> <div class="editor-description font-12 font-serif mt-5 text-black">Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.</div> </a> <div data-popper-arrow></div> </div> <span class="btn btn-link editor-link p-0 qa-byline-link font-12 "> The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica</span></div></div> </div> <article class="topic-content content mt-20"><figure class="md-assembly md-feature-assembly print-false" data-type="1" data-descid="5"><div class="md-assembly-wrapper card-media " data-type="image"><a href="https://cdn.britannica.com/46/136146-050-AC38F468/Distribution-landmasses-regions-seas-ocean-basins-locations.jpg" target="_blank" class="gtm-assembly-link position-relative d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center " data-href="*"><img src="https://cdn.britannica.com/46/136146-050-AC38F468/Distribution-landmasses-regions-seas-ocean-basins-locations.jpg" alt="Paleogeography and paleoceanography of Early Triassic time. The present-day coastlines and tectonic boundaries of the configured continents are shown at the lower right. Continents, continental drift, plate tectonics, Pangea, Laurussia, Gondwana." data-width="1600" data-height="979" loading="eager"><button class="magnifying-glass btn btn-circle position-absolute shadow btn-white top-10 right-10" aria-label="Zoom in"><em class="material-icons link-blue" data-icon="zoom_in"></em></button></a></div><figcaption class=""><div class="md-assembly-caption text-muted font-14 font-serif line-clamp"><span><button class="js-more-btn d-none btn btn-unstyled font-12 bg-white js-content" aria-label="Toggle more/less fact data"><span class="link-blue">(more)</span></button></span></div><cite class="credit d-block mt-5">Adapted from: C.R. Scotese, The University of Texas at Arlington</cite></figcaption></figure><p class="topic-paragraph"><a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Earth" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Earth</a> of the present day is made up of six or seven <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/continent" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">continents</a> and four or five <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/ocean" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">oceans</a>, depending on whom you ask. But this wasn’t always the case. Through the course of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/geologic-time" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">geologic time</a>, the continents “drift” about on tectonic plates—large parts of Earth’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/crust-mantle-model" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">crust</a> that float on a heated plastic layer of mantle and periodically crash into one another and break apart. Every so often (that is, every several hundred million years or so), the conditions are such that most or all of the continents come together to form a single larger landmass called a supercontinent. Notable supercontinents of the past include <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Laurasia" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Laurasia</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Gondwana-supercontinent" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Gondwana</a> (or Gondwanaland), and—the mother of all supercontinents—<a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Pangea" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Pangea</a>, which lasted from the early <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/Permian-Period" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Permian Period</a> (roughly 299 million years ago) into the early <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/Jurassic-Period" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Jurassic Period</a> (roughly 200 million years ago).</p><span class="MOD1"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">But how do we know that Pangea actually existed? After all, human beings evolved only a few hundred thousand years ago, so no one was around to witness this geomorphological monstrosity. How did scientists “discover” Pangea and other supercontinents of the past? Nowadays, they can study the geologic record and use radioactive dating, seismic surveys, and other technologies to construct maps of how the world looked at various points in Earth’s history. Pangea’s existence was first proposed in 1912, however, well before the invention of these tools and the development of the modern theory of plate tectonics.</p><span class="MOD2"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">German meteorologist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Wegener" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Alfred Wegener</a> first presented the concept of Pangea (meaning “all lands”) along with the first comprehensive theory of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/continental-drift-geology" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">continental drift</a>, the idea that Earth’s continents slowly move relative to one another, at a conference in 1912 and later in his book <em>The Origin of Continents and Oceans</em> (1915). Like a handful of other scientists who came before him, such as 19th-century German naturalist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexander-von-Humboldt" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Alexander von Humboldt</a>, Wegener became impressed with the similarity in the coastlines of eastern South America and western Africa and wondered whether those lands had once been joined together. Sometime around the year 1910 he began to consider whether all of Earth’s present-day continents had once formed a single large mass, or supercontinent, long ago, and had subsequently broken apart. Wegener’s presentation ran counter to the dominant paradigm of the time, which suggested that large portions of continents foundered and sank beneath the oceans over time.</p><span class="MOD3"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">Wegener pointed out that the outline, the geomorphology (rocks and landforms), and the climate belts of eastern South America were similar to those of the southwestern coast of Africa. He also argued that fossils of certain plants and animals appeared on both of these continents—and that while they were alive these organisms couldn’t have traversed the width of the South Atlantic that currently separates the two continents. So, logic suggested that South America and Africa had once been part of the same landmass. Wegener concluded that South America and Africa (as well as others) had been connected to one another, possibly through land bridges, some 250 million years ago. He also believed that Pangea had lasted through most of Earth’s history. Wegener relied on the work of Austrian geologist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eduard-Suess" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Eduard Suess</a>, who (although he was a big proponent of the existence of sinking continents) first developed the concept of Gondwanaland—a supercontinent lasting from 600 million to 180 million years ago and made up of present-day Africa, South America, Australia, India, and Antarctica. Suess spotted rock formations in India that compared well in terms of age and composition with similar formations across various Southern Hemisphere continents. Wegener used Seuss’s work to support his own continental drift hypothesis and considered Gondwanaland to be the southern half of Pangea.</p><span class="MOD4"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">Despite having this geological and paleontological evidence, Wegener’s theory of continental drift was not accepted by the scientific community, because his explanation of the driving forces behind continental movement (which he said stemmed from the pulling force that created Earth’s equatorial bulge or the gravitational pull of the moon) were refuted. Wegener died in 1930, well before many of his ideas regarding Pangea and continental drift were vindicated. Other scientists, however, such as South African geologist Alexander Du Toit, continued to collect evidence in support of continental drift.  Du Toit proposed the idea of Laurasia—an ancient supercontinent in the Northern Hemisphere that included North America, Europe, and Asia (except peninsular India)—in his book <em>Our Wandering Continents</em> (1937).</p><span class="MOD5"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">Developments in rock and mineral <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/dating-geochronology" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">dating</a>, sonar, and geophysics ultimately vindicated Wegener. The rock formations of eastern North America, Western Europe, and northwestern Africa were later found to have a common origin, and they overlapped in time with the presence of Gondwanaland. Together, these discoveries supported the existence of Pangea. In addition, evidence supporting continental drift mounted during the 20th century, and scientists described a mechanism that seemed to explain continental movement by the 1960s, which was folded into the modern theory of plate tectonics. This mechanism was the process of mantle convection—where heated mantle from Earth’s interior rises to the surface to drive apart tectonic plates in opposite directions. Although so-called <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/spreading-center" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">spreading centers</a> (linear boundaries between diverging plates on the ocean floor characterized by rising <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/magma-rock" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">magma</a>) have been shown to exist, an explanation of how mantle convection actually works remains elusive to this day.</p><span class="MOD6"></span><p class="topic-paragraph">Modern geology has shown that Pangea did actually exist. In contrast to Wegener’s thinking, however, geologists note that other Pangea-like supercontinents likely preceded Pangea, including Rodinia (circa 1 billion years ago) and Pannotia (circa 600 million years ago). Today, Earth’s tectonic plates continue to move, and their motions are slowly bringing the continents together once again. Within the next 250 million years, Africa and the Americas will merge with <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Eurasia" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Eurasia</a> to form a supercontinent that approaches Pangean proportions. Such an episodic assembly of the world’s landmasses has been called the supercontinent cycle or, in honor of Wegener, the Wegenerian cycle. </p><span class="MOD7"></span><span class="AM-END-OF-ARTICLE am-inline"></span></article><div class="related-info grid"><div class="col"><div class="learn-more"><h3>Learn More About This Topic</h3><ul class="list-unstyled"><li><a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/plate-tectonics" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">How does plate tectonics work?</a></li><li><a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/Glossopteris" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">Read about <em>Glossopteris</em>, a plant species whose distribution was among the first evidence of continental drift</a></li><li><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexander-von-Humboldt" class="md-crosslink " data-show-preview="true">What were some of the other scientific contributions made by Alexander von Humboldt?</a></li></ul></div></div></div> </div> </div> </div> <aside class="cm-rightrail d-none d-md-block ad-rail"></aside> </div> </div> </div> </div> </main> <div class="grid gx-0"> <div class="col"> <div class="md-loading hidden display-4 font-weight-normal"></div> <div class="text-center my-20 mb-100"> <button class="md-infinite-load-next btn btn-blue" data-value="next-page">Load More</button> </div> </div> <div class="col-md-da-320 hidden-xs"> </div> </div></div> </div> </main> <div id="md-footer"></div> <noscript><iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-5W6NC8" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden"></iframe></noscript> <script type="text/javascript" id="_informizely_script_tag"> var IzWidget = IzWidget || {}; (function (d) { var scriptElement = d.createElement('script'); scriptElement.type = 'text/javascript'; scriptElement.async = true; scriptElement.src = "https://insitez.blob.core.windows.net/site/f780f33e-a610-4ac2-af81-3eb184037547.js"; var node = d.getElementById('_informizely_script_tag'); node.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, node); } )(document); </script>  <script> window.ap3c = window.ap3c || {}; var ap3c = window.ap3c; ap3c.cmd = ap3c.cmd || []; ap3c.cmd.push(function() { ap3c.init('ZO4siT4cLwnykPnzZWJtd3Byb2Q', 'https://engage.email.britannica.com/'); ap3c.track({v: 0}); }); ap3c.activity = function(act) { ap3c.act = (ap3c.act || []); ap3c.act.push(act); }; var s, t; s = document.createElement('script'); s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.src = "https://engage.email.britannica.com/app.js"; t = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; t.parentNode.insertBefore(s, t); </script> <script class="marketing-page-info" type="application/json"> {"pageType":"Story","templateName":"SPOTLIGHT","pageNumber":1,"pagesTotal":11,"pageId":6354,"pageLength":null,"initialLoad":true,"lastPageOfScroll":false} </script> <script class="marketing-content-info" type="application/json"> [] </script> <script src="https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-130/js/libs/jquery-3.5.0.min.js?v=3.130.14"></script> <script type="text/javascript" data-type="Init Mendel Code Splitting"> (function() { $.ajax({ dataType: 'script', cache: true, url: 'https://cdn.britannica.com/mendel-resources/3-130/dist/story-page.js?v=3.130.14' }); })(); </script> <script class="analytics-metadata" type="application/json"> {"leg":"A","adLeg":"A","userType":"ANONYMOUS","pageType":"Story","pageSubtype":"SPOTLIGHT","articleTemplateType":null,"gisted":false,"pageNumber":1,"hasSummarizeButton":false,"hasAskButton":false} </script> <script type="text/javascript"> EBStat={accountId:-1,hostnameOverride:'webstats.eb.com',domain:'www.britannica.com', json:''}; </script> <script type="text/javascript"> ( function() { $.ajax( { dataType: 'script', cache: true, url: '//www.britannica.com/webstats/mendelstats.js?v=1' } ) .done( function() { try {writeStat(null,EBStat);} catch(err){} } ); })(); </script> <div id="bc-fixed-dialogue"></div> </body> </html>

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Spotting a Supercontinent: How Pangea Was Discovered | Britannica