Did you ever notice when looking at a map that all the continents look like puzzle pieces that could form one big puzzle? Around 200-250 million years ago there weren't seven individual continents; it was only one big continent which was known as the super-continent, or Pangaea. The word Pangaea means "Entire Earth " which came from the ancient Greek word "Pangaia"". During the Pangaea Era, there were four time periods; Cambrian, Triassic, Jurassic, and the Cretaceous. According to geologists, Cambrian was the first time period of this era. During this period, the continents moved toward one another where eventually they crashed. As a result of the crash, the Appalachian and Ural Mountains (naming a few) were formed causing one big fender-bender! The Triassic time period, also the start of the Mesozoic Era, experienced drastic changes. During this time period Dinosaurs came into existence as well as unusual plant life. Late into the Triassic period the smallest mammal skeletons were found. Presently, these small warm blooded mammals seem to find their way into our homes, unwelcomed; yes you guessed it; mice! During the Jurassic period, the super-continent started to break apart into two masses of land. These masses of land were referred to as the Southern mass called Gondwanaland and the Northern mass called Laurasia. Dinosaurs during the Jurassic period seemed to mutate into larger, yet fiercer predators also increasing by the numbers. The last time period of the Mesozoic Era was the Cretaceous time period, during this period most dinosaurs and other species became extinct. There are many ideologies as to what happened as a result of the extinctions. It is said by geologists, 250 million years from now all the continents will once again come together as a gigantic super-continent. The future super-continent will not be the first or the last to form here on Earth; too bad it won't happen in my lifetime.
Plate tectonics are parts of the Earth's lithosphere that are divided into seven major plates and many less major ones. The major plates are the Pacific plate, North American plate, South American Plate, African Plate, Antarctica Plate, Indian-Australian Plate, and Eurasian Plate. A scientist named ...
The foundation of the Florida platform came from the African plate over 200 million years ago.1 This occurred during the early Mesozoic Era in which the supercontinent of Pangea began to break apart and a small piece of land became stuck to North America as it separated from Africa. ...
