Before the continents broke apart...?

Question

There was one main land mass surrounded by water, right? What do we call it and does anyone have a picture, please?
Obviously no-one has a photograph, but does anyone know where there is a drawing?
Thanks.

Answer 1

It's called Pangea. There's a great animation on the internet showing the moving continents (from pangea to to present day). I'll find it and back back to you.

Edit:

There are a few nice images if you do a google image search for ‘Pangea’

Here are some fun animations showing the continents forming. There’s a really good detailed one somewhere but I couldn’t find it just now.

http://www.scotese.com/pangeanim.htm
http://www.odsn.de/odsn/services/paleomap/animation.html


Notice how quickly India moves into Asia? Crash! Hence the Himalayas. And Australia breaks off first…hence it has the most different species (marsupials) compared to the rest of the world.

All fascinating stuff…I think.

Answer 2

Pangaea or Pangea (derived from Παγγαία, Greek meaning 'all earth') is the name given to the supercontinent that is believed to have existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras, before the process of plate tectonics separated each of the component continents into their current configuration. The name was apparently first used by the German Alfred Wegener, chief proponent of the continental drift theory, in 1920.

In configuration, Pangaea is believed to have been a C-shaped landmass that spread across the equator. The body of water that was believed to have been enclosed within the resulting crescent has been named the Tethys Sea. Owing to Pangaea's massive size, the inland regions appear to have been very dry, due to the lack of precipitation. The large supercontinent would potentially have allowed terrestrial animals to migrate freely all the way from the South Pole to the North Pole.

The vast ocean that once surrounded the supercontinent of Pangaea has been named Panthalassa. Pangaea is believed to have broken up about 180 million years ago (mya) in the Jurassic Period, first into two supercontinents (Gondwana to the south and Laurasia to the north), thereafter into the continents as we understand them today.

Answer 3

Actually there are thought to have been two super continents, Gondwanaland in the South and Laurasia in the North. Go to the second link for an animation of the break up of Gondwanaland over time.

Gondwanaland, also called GONDWANA, hypothetical former supercontinent in the Southern Hemisphere, which included South America, Africa, peninsular India, Australia, and Antarctica. The name was coined by the Austrian geologist Eduard Suess in reference to the Upper Paleozoic and Mesozoic formations of the Gondwana region of central India, which display typical developments of some of the shared geologic features.

The geologic evidence for a former land connection between the currently separated continents and other areas includes the occurrence of tillites (glacial deposits) of Permo-Carboniferous age (the time boundary between the Carboniferous and Permian periods is 286 million years ago) and similar floras and faunas that are not found in the Northern Hemisphere. The widely distributed seed fern Glossopteris is particularly cited in this regard. The rock strata that contain this evidence are called the Karoo (Karroo) System in South Africa, the Gondwana System in India, and the Santa Catharina System in South America.

The concept that the continents were at one time joined in the geologic past was first set forth in detail by Alfred Wegener, a German meteorologist, in 1912. He envisioned a single great landmass, Pangaea, which supposedly began to separate late in the Triassic Period (245 to 208 million years ago). Subsequent workers distinguished between a southern landmass, Gondwanaland, and Laurasia to the north. It should be noted that much of Wegener's hypothesis of continental drift was based on the apparent geographic "fit" of the bulge of eastern South America and the western coast of Africa. The geologic evidence cited earlier was provided by subsequent investigators.

The idea of Gondwanaland languished for many years, except among scientists in countries of the Southern Hemisphere, until the 1960s, when evidence of sea-floor spreading from the loci of oceanic ridges proved that the ocean basins are not permanent global features and vindicated Wegener's hypothesis of continental drift. Although the term Gondwanaland does not appear in the modern literature with great frequency, the concept of continental drift and former continental connections is widely accepted.

Answer 4

We call it Pangea, and you can find a picture in an old Earth Science text book.

Answer 5

they never really broke apart, they are still basically the same as when they were created,
if you could swim on the bottom of the ocean from one continent to another youd find that there is still land connecting them

Answer 6

i believe it was called pangea, i saw a documentary on the box called walking with diosaurs where this name pangea was used to describe the land mass. LF

Answer 7

if you like to show off a bit - pangea is a greek word - pan in this case meaning all across and gea meaning earth.
for a pic - perhaps google it

Answer 8

it was called pangea. then when pangea broke into 2 halfs, the north was called laurasia and the south was gondwanaland

Answer 9

Pangaea and u can get a drawing on google

Answer 10

I know it is referred to as "Gondwanaland" (name after the theorist). there's a drawing in my geography book for school. (Caribbean Geography for CXC)