Pangaea

Single land mass, made up of all the present continents, believed to have existed between 300 and 200 million years ago; the rest of the Earth was covered by the Panthalassa ocean. Pangaea split into two land masses – Laurasia in the north and Gondwanaland in the south – which subsequently broke up into several continents. These then moved slowly to their present positions (see plate tectonics).

The former existence of a single ‘supercontinent’ was proposed by German meteorologist Alfred Wegener in 1912.