During the Early Permian, the northwestern coastline of the ancient continent
Gondwana (a paleocontinent that would eventually fragment to become South
America, India, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica)
collided with and joined the southern part of Euramerica (a paleocontinent made
up of North America and southern Europe).
Therefore the neighboring continents before are the 7 major continents, South
America, India, America and Southern Europe, Africa,
Australia, and Antarctica.
The supercontinent began to break apart about 200 million years ago, during
the Early Jurassic Period (201 million to 174 million years ago),
eventually forming the modern continents and the Atlantic and Indian
oceans. Pangea’s existence was first proposed in 1912 by German
meteorologist Alfred Wegener as a part of his theory of continental drift.
Its name is derived from the Greek pangaia, meaning “all the Earth.”
