Pangaea was the supercontinent that existed about 300 million years ago before breaking into today’s continents.
The name Pangaea comes from Greek roots meaning “all Earth.” It assembled during the late Paleozoic Era and brought nearly all of the planet’s continental land together. Pangaea was surrounded by a vast global ocean called Panthalassa.
The supercontinent began to break apart during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic periods, roughly 200 million years ago. Rifting opened new ocean basins, including the central Atlantic, as fragments such as Laurasia and Gondwana moved toward their later positions.
Pangaea is not the same as Gondwana or Laurasia. Those were major continental groupings that formed after Pangaea began separating, although Gondwana existed earlier as a southern supercontinent. Evidence for Pangaea includes matching continental coastlines, related fossils on continents now separated by oceans, and continuous rock belts that line up across modern landmasses.