Skip to content
Geolens

Glossary

417 words used in the labs.

Find a term from the labs, understand the process behind it, and see how it appears in the landscape. Each entry connects an explanation with a real observation and a model you can explore.

Term

Pangaea

A supercontinent assembled during the late Palaeozoic and broken apart during the Mesozoic. Its reconstruction uses evidence from rocks, fossils, magnetism and continental margins. Pangaea was one of several supercontinents in Earth’s history, rather than Earth’s original crust.

What to look for

Permian Glossopteris leaf from Antarctica. Related fossils on separated southern continents are evidence that these lands were once joined within Gondwana, which formed part of Pangaea.

Related labs

Plate boundaries →Geologic time →Continental drift →
A dark Glossopteris fossil leaf from Permian rocks in Antarctica, with a branching vein network.
Loading photograph

Explore further with USGS water glossary · USGS volcano glossary · NPS glacial geology · NASA Earth facts. Photograph acknowledgements are collected on the Image credits page.