Pangaea,
Pangæa, or Pangea was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic
eras, forming about 300 million years ago. It began to break apart around 200 million years ago. The single
global ocean which surrounded Pangaea is accordingly named Panthalassa.
The name Pangaea is derived from Ancient Greek pan () meaning "entire", and Gaia () meaning
"Earth". The name was coined during a 1927 symposium discussing Alfred Wegener's theory of continental
drift. In his book The Origin of Continents and Oceans (Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane), first
published in 1915, he postulated that prior to breaking up and drifting to their present locations, all the continents had at one time formed a single supercontinent which he called the "Urkontinent".
