Pangea is by far the most famous and the most recent supercontinent. Spanning from the Pennsylvanian epoch, the second one in the Carboniferous period to the early Jurassic period, This supercontinent allowed animals and plants to spread and roam all over the land. It has been proven that fossils around this time were pretty much global and not restricted to specific continents. It formed with the closure of the Rheic
Ocean and
broke apart with the opening of the Atlantic Ocean.
Before Pangea, there were
two continents called Laurasia and Gondwana (sometimes called Gondwanaland), and after Pangea
broke apart, there were two continents too, also called well... Laurasia and Gondwana. The early Laurasia and Gondwana are sometimes called Paleolaurasia and Paleogondwana to prevent mixup of the names.
The name of Pangea originated from
Greek where Pan means all and
Gaia means earth. The name of Laurasia is made from concatenating the names of the Laurentia Craton (
Today's North America) and
Asia. Gondwana means "Land of Gonds (a tribe in India)".