How did supercontinents form and disintegrate?

Heat from radiation processes taking place inside the Earth causes the tectonic plates above to move, gather or separate from each other.

The Earth's surface is not static. Throughout history, vast landmasses have formed and disintegrated. Their fragments drift and change from one form to another. Sometimes the land is evenly distributed, but other times it all comes together to form massive masses called supercontinents. The supercontinent eventually broke up again. So what causes these massive land masses to form and change?

The supercontinent Pangea was about 200 million years ago. (Photo: Fama Clamosa).

Supercontinents occur when most or all of a planet's land merges into one large structure . This has happened several times in history, but the most recent example is the supercontinent Pangea. This supercontinent existed about 320 - 195 million years ago, not long compared to the age of the Earth. Pangea was essentially the only continent on the planet at the time and was surrounded by a single ocean - Panthalassa .

Before Pangea appeared, Earth also had other supercontinents, including Rodinia (about 1.2 billion - 750 million years ago) and Columbia, also known as Nuna (about 1.7 billion - 1.45 billion years ago before). There's also Gondwana , a vast landmass that formed about 600 million years ago, but scientists aren't sure whether it really qualifies as a supercontinent.

No matter how vast and massive these lands are, they are no match for the chaotic movements within the planet over millions of years. All supercontinents eventually disappear, Pangea is no exception. The process that causes this change is called continental drift, which involves the constant movement of Earth's tectonic plates.

In fact, it was the effort to decipher the formation and dissolution of Pangea that led scientists to the theory of plate tectonics . This idea was proposed by German meteorologist Alfred Wegener in the early 20th century and was proven correct in the 1960s, when technology allowed.

Essentially, the theory of plate tectonics holds that the Earth's outer layer - the crust or lithosphere - is made up of many plates moving above the mantle. The mantle accounts for about 84% of the blue planet's volume, located between the core and crust. Heat from radiation processes taking place inside the Earth causes tectonic plates to shift. Sometimes, this movement causes landmasses to come together, creating supercontinents. Other times, they separate from each other, causing the supercontinent to be destroyed.

Pangea broke into many pieces, becoming the continents we see today. This is why the east coast of South America looks matched to the west coast of Africa, like pieces of a puzzle. These two lands were once a unified block.

Today, the lands of the world are still moving. On average, they move about 1.5 cm per year, equivalent to the growth rate of a human toenail. However, this speed is not uniform. Areas like coastal California move faster than average - about 5 centimeters a year.

When the edges of tectonic plates meet, their movement can cause the rocks of the crust to collide and grind against each other, leading to earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. This activity can also create new mountains.

Because the process of continental drift is continuous , the current continental structure will not last. Experts have noticed signs of movement leading to a completely different arrangement. For example, there is evidence that Africa is slowly splitting in two. One day, millions of years from now, the continents will come together again to form a new supercontinent, surrounded by a single giant ocean, just as Pangea existed.