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Pangea

Pangea

1 7.9
A single large area of land that once included all Earth's continents before they split
  • noun
  • /ˈpænˌdʒiə/
  • Specialized
: Pangea
  • At the time, there was only a single supercontinent, Pangea, that had begun to fragment, and the climate was much warmer.
  • a single supercontinent, Pangea
  • called Pangea

Did you just see a fridge and think, no, Pangea?

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Examples

  • During this time, above the water, all the continents on Earth are joined together in a single mass of land, a supercontinent called Pangea.

  • During this time, above the water, all the continents on Earth are joined together in a single mass of land, a supercontinent called Pangea.

  • At the beginning of the Early Jurassic, Pangea has started to break up and drift apart into different pieces.

  • In fact, in the early years of the Pangea hothouse, CO2 levels were lower than today.

    Blog text (16)
  • Mammals diversified as Pangea continued to break apart, first into a northern supercontinent, Laurasia, and a southern one, Gondwana.

    Academic text (2009)
  • Before then, all the land formed one huge continent known as Pangea.

  • At the beginning of dinosaur history (the Triassic Period), there was one supercontinent on Earth (Pangea).

Synonyms

supercontinent
vsPangea
  • Specialized
2 7.0

A very large area of land that forms when several continents join together

is the specific ancient case that included all landmasses before they separated

Surface Forms

Pangea singular
Pangeas plural

Etymology

The word Pangea comes from Greek parts pan 'all' and Gaia 'Earth', and you can remember pan from pandemic, which also means 'all'. So Pangea literally means 'all the Earth', which is why scientists use it for the one supercontinent that once held all the land.