Laurentia was docked against the western shores of a united Gondwana for a short period near the Precambrian/Cambrian boundary, forming the short-lived and still disputed supercontinent Pannotia. During this interval, the Cambrian explosion occurred. The last stages of Gondwanan assembly overlapped with the opening of the Iapetus Ocean between Laurentia and western Gondwana. Three orogenies were recognized during the 1990s: the East African Orogeny ( 650 to 800 Ma) and Kuunga orogeny (including the Malagasy Orogeny in southern Madagascar) ( 550 Ma), the collision between East Gondwana and East Africa in two steps, and the Brasiliano orogeny ( 660 to 530 Ma), the successive collision between South American and African cratons. One of those orogenic belts, the Mozambique Belt, formed 800 to 650 Ma and was originally interpreted as the suture between East (India, Madagascar, Antarctica, and Australia) and West Gondwana (Africa and South America). Several orogenies, collectively known as the Pan-African orogeny, caused the continental fragments of a much older supercontinent, Rodinia, to amalgamate. The assembly of Gondwana was a protracted process during the Neoproterozoic and Paleozoic, which remains incompletely understood because of the lack of paleo-magnetic data. 620 to 550 Ma post-collisional extension of the East African Orogeny in blue and 570 to 530 Ma collisional metamorphism of the Kuunga orogeny in red. Regions that were part of Gondwana have shared floral and zoological elements that persist to the present day.Įastern Gondwana.
600 to 530 Ma with the overlapping Brasiliano and Kuunga orogenies, the collision of South America with Africa, and the addition of Australia and Antarctica, respectively. 800 to 650 Ma with the East African Orogeny, the collision of India and Madagascar with East Africa, and was completed c. The remnants of Gondwana make up around two-thirds of today's continental area, including South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, Zealandia, Arabia, and the Indian Subcontinent.
Gondwana (and Pangaea) gradually broke up during the Mesozoic Era. During the Carboniferous Period, it merged with Laurasia to form a larger supercontinent called Pangaea. Eventually, Gondwana became the largest piece of continental crust of the Paleozoic Era, covering an area of about 100,000,000 km 2 (39,000,000 sq mi), about one-fifth of the Earth's surface. Gondwana was formed by the accretion of several cratons. Gondwana originally meant "Land of the Gonds", making Gondwanaland a tautology. To differentiate it from the Indian region of the same name (see § Name), it is also commonly called Gondwanaland. Gondwana was not considered a supercontinent by the earliest definition, since the landmasses of Baltica, Laurentia, and Siberia were separated from it. The final stages of breakup involving the separation of Antarctica from South America (forming the Drake Passage) and Australia, occurred during the Paleogene. Gondwana ( / ɡ ɒ n d ˈ w ɑː n ə/) was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic (about 180 million years ago). Gondwana 420 million years ago (late Silurian).