During what geological period did pangaea form? When did it break up?

Question

also dinosaurs went extinct at the end of the cretaceous period. would they have witnessed the formation of the himalayals? Why or why not? and how long were dinosaurs around? (I know I ask alot but please answer every part of the Question as much as possible)

Answer 1

Gondwana and Euroamerica collided to form Pangaea in the Late Mississippian to Late Pennsylvanian. When dinosaurs diverged from their archosaur ancestors in the Middle/Late Triassic, Pangaea was on the cusp of pulling apart. By the time the dinosaurs went exinct at the end of the Cretaceous Period (160-170 million years later), the most of the continents were separated. Sea-levels were also very high, forming many landlocked islands.

India didn't collide with Asia until the Eocene, so the dinosaurs missed that one.

Answer 2

Yes, there is a supercontinent cycle that takes hundreds of millions of years. The last supercontinent before Pangaea was Pannotia and before that Rodinia, and there were at least three more before that. "Most commonly, paleogeographers employ the term supercontinent to refer to a single landmass consisting of all the modern continents. The earliest known supercontinent was Vaalbara. It formed from proto-continents and was a supercontinent by 3.1 billion years ago (3.1 Ga). Vaalbara broke up ~2.8 Ga. The supercontinent Kenorland was formed ~2.7 Ga and then broke sometime after 2.5 Ga into the proto-continent Cratons called Laurentia, Baltica, Australia, and Kalahari. The supercontinent Columbia formed during a period of 1.8 to 1.5 billion years and broke up about 1.5-1.3 billion years ago. The supercontinent Rodinia broke up roughly 750 million years ago. One of the fragments included large parts of the continents now located in the southern hemisphere. Plate tectonics brought the fragments of Rodinia back together in a different configuration during the late Paleozoic era, forming the best-known supercontinent, Pangaea. Pangaea subsequently broke up into the northern and southern supercontinents, Laurasia and Gondwana." Then, the Laurasia and Gondwana broke up into the continents of today. North and South America connected, India merged with Asia, and Africa with Eurasia. The plates continue to slowly move, and will reunite into a single supercontinent sometime in the next few hundred million years. These past locations and connections between continents can be found by correlating ancient rock formations at different locations, radioactive dating of the rocks, and paleomagnetic data, from which the location relative to the magnetic poles can be determined. Precambrian crust of the North American/Laurentian protocontinent can be found in the Canadian Shield along the great lakes and hudson bay. Similar highly folded and metamorphosed rocks that constitute the oldest continental crust called cratons can be found in every continent.

Answer 3

pangea formed from between the Precambrian and Cambrian times, if broke up shortly after, but with man things in geology it took quite some time (it is in fact still splitting up); this site shows a video/animations of the break up of Pangea; along with many otehr past world/geology related stuff:

the videos are at:
http://www.scotese.com/newpage13.htm
The overal address of the site:
is:http://www.scotese.com/earth.htm

The dinosaurs would not have had the pleasure of seeing India collide with Asia -they just missed it; it only happened about 55-50 million years ago, and is still continuing. the collision is shown in this animation:
http://www.scotese.com/indianim.htm

The dinosaurs wandered around for about 200 million years

Hope this helps

Answer 4

Hi. Start here: http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/historical.html