Pangaea was the supercontinent that united nearly all present-day landmasses about 300 million years ago.
Pangaea formed during the late Paleozoic Era and began breaking apart during the early Mesozoic Era. The name comes from Greek roots meaning “all Earth.” It included land that later became the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, Antarctica, and Australia.
German meteorologist and geophysicist Alfred Wegener proposed the idea of continental drift in 1912. The matching shapes of continental margins, related fossils on widely separated continents, and geological similarities supported his argument. Later evidence from seafloor spreading and plate tectonics explained how continents could move.
Pangaea is not the only supercontinent known from Earth’s history. Earlier groupings such as Rodinia also existed, while Gondwana and Laurasia were major continental assemblies associated with Pangaea’s breakup. Continents continue moving today by a few centimetres per year as tectonic plates shift.