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Panthalassa (Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
, meaning 'all sea'), also known as the Panthalassic Ocean, was the vast global ocean
Ocean

An ocean is a major body of Seawater, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a World Ocean that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas....
 that surrounded the supercontinent
Supercontinent

In geology, a supercontinent is a landmass comprising more than one continental core, or craton. The assembly of cratons and terrane that form Eurasia qualifies as a supercontinent today....
 Pangaea
Pangaea

Pangaea, Pang?a or Pangea was the supercontinent that existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras about 250 million years ago, before the component continents were separated into their current configuration....
, during the late Paleozoic
Paleozoic

The Paleozoic or Palaeozoic Era is the earliest of three geology Era of the Phanerozoic Eon . The Paleozoic spanned from roughly , and is subdivided into six period ; from oldest to youngest they are: the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian period, Carboniferous, and Permian...
 and the early Mesozoic
Mesozoic

The Mesozoic Era is one of three Geologic time scale of the Phanerozoic eon . The division of time into eras dates back to Giovanni Arduino, in the 18th century, although his original name for the era now called the 'Mesozoic' was 'Secondary' ....
 eras. It included the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Mare Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portugal explorer Ferdinand Magellan....
 to the west and north and the Tethys Ocean
Tethys Ocean

The Tethys Ocean was an ocean that existed between the continents of Gondwana and Laurasia during the Mesozoic era before the opening of the Indian Ocean....
 to the southeast.






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Pangaea
Panthalassa (Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
, meaning 'all sea'), also known as the Panthalassic Ocean, was the vast global ocean
Ocean

An ocean is a major body of Seawater, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a World Ocean that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas....
 that surrounded the supercontinent
Supercontinent

In geology, a supercontinent is a landmass comprising more than one continental core, or craton. The assembly of cratons and terrane that form Eurasia qualifies as a supercontinent today....
 Pangaea
Pangaea

Pangaea, Pang?a or Pangea was the supercontinent that existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras about 250 million years ago, before the component continents were separated into their current configuration....
, during the late Paleozoic
Paleozoic

The Paleozoic or Palaeozoic Era is the earliest of three geology Era of the Phanerozoic Eon . The Paleozoic spanned from roughly , and is subdivided into six period ; from oldest to youngest they are: the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian period, Carboniferous, and Permian...
 and the early Mesozoic
Mesozoic

The Mesozoic Era is one of three Geologic time scale of the Phanerozoic eon . The division of time into eras dates back to Giovanni Arduino, in the 18th century, although his original name for the era now called the 'Mesozoic' was 'Secondary' ....
 eras. It included the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Mare Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portugal explorer Ferdinand Magellan....
 to the west and north and the Tethys Ocean
Tethys Ocean

The Tethys Ocean was an ocean that existed between the continents of Gondwana and Laurasia during the Mesozoic era before the opening of the Indian Ocean....
 to the southeast. It became the Pacific Ocean, following the closing of the Tethys basin and the breakup of Pangaea, which created the Atlantic
Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions; with a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres . It covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface....
, Arctic
Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic North Pole region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions....
, and Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering about 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by Asia ; on the west by Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and Australia; and on the south by the Southern Ocean ....
 basins. The Panthalassic is often called the Paleo-Pacific ("old Pacific") because the Pacific Ocean evolved from it.

In the map
Map

A map is a visual representation of an area?a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as Object , regions, and topic-comment....
 on the right, the Earth
Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Earth is the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in diameter, mass and density. It is also referred to as the World and Wiktionary:Terra.Note that by International Astronomical Union convention, the term "Terra" is used for naming extensive land masses, rather...
's equator
Equator

The equator is the intersection of the Earth's surface with the Plane perpendicular to the Earth's rotation and containing the Earth's center of mass....
 was a line that roughly crossed the spot where Spain
Spain

Spain or the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in Southern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though Espa?a , Estado espa?ol and Naci?n espa?ola are used interchangeably....
, Morocco
Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 34 million and an area just under 447,000 km2....
 (Casablanca
Casablanca

Casablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Greater Casablanca region.With a population of 3.1 million ??????)...
), and Boston met. South of that line, the land mass was called Gondwana
Gondwana

Gondwana , originally Gondwanaland is the name given to a southern precursor-supercontinent and then as a remnant separated from Laurasia 180- during the breakup of the Pangaea supercontinent that existed about 500 to 200 Annum ago into two large segments.. North of the line, it was named Laurasia
Laurasia

Laurasia was a supercontinent that most recently existed as a part of the split of the Pangaean supercontinent in the late Mesozoic era . It included most of the landmasses which make up today's continents of the northern hemisphere, chiefly Laurentia , Baltica, Siberia , Kazakhstania, and the North China Craton and East China Craton craton...
.

Formation

By 900 million years ago a triple junction
Triple junction

A triple junction is the point where the boundaries of three tectonic plates meet. At the triple junction a boundary will be one of 3 types - a Mid-ocean ridge, oceanic trench or transform fault and triple junctions can be described according to the types of plate margin that meet at them....
 formed as the supercontinent Rodinia
Rodinia

In geology, Rodinia is the name of a supercontinent, a continent which contained most or all of Earth's landmass. According to plate tectonic reconstructions, Rodinia existed between 1100 and 750 million years ago, in the Neoproterozoic era ....
 started to rift
Rift

In geology, a rift is a place where the Earth's Crust and lithosphere are being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics.Typical rift features are a central linear downdropped geologic fault segment, called a graben, with parallel normal faulting and rift-flank uplifts on either side forming a rift valley, where the rift r...
 apart. Between about 800 million and 700 million years ago, it split in half. This was one of the most significant rifting events of all time, because it opened up the Panthalassic Ocean to the west of Laurentia
Laurentia

Laurentia , like all craton land, was created as continents moved about the surface of the Earth , bumping into other continents and drifting away....
, a continent that became North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
. In western Laurentia (North America), tectonic episodes that preceded this rifting produced failed rift
Aulacogen

In geology, an aulacogen is a failed arm of a triple junction of a plate tectonics rift system. A triple junction beneath a continental plate initiates a three way breakup of the continental plate....
s that harbored large depositional basins in Western Laurentia. The global ocean of Mirovia
Mirovia

Mirovia was an hypothesized paleo-ocean which may have been a global ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Rodinia in the Neoproterozoic Era, about 1 billion to 750 million years ago....
, an ocean that surrounded Rodinia, started to shrink because the Pan-African ocean and Panthalassa were expanding. Between 650 million and 550 million years ago, another supercontinent was forming, Pannotia
Pannotia

Pannotia, first described by Ian W. D. Dalziel in 1997, is a hypothetical supercontinent that existed from the Pan-African orogeny about 600 million years ago to the end of the Precambrian about 540 million years ago....
, which was shaped like a "V". Inside the "V" was Panthalassa, outside of the "V" was the Pan-African Ocean
Pan-African Ocean

The Pan-African Ocean is a hypothesized paleo-ocean whose closure created the supercontinent of Pannotia. The ocean may have existed before the break-up of a supercontinent of Rodinia....
 and remnants of the Mirovia Ocean.

Most of Panthalassa's oceanic basin
Oceanic basin

Hydrologically, an oceanic basin may be anywhere on Earth that is covered by seawater, but geologically ocean basins are large Basin that are below sea level....
 and crust
Oceanic crust

Oceanic crust is the part of Earth's lithosphere that surfaces in the ocean basins. Oceanic crust is primarily composed of mafic rocks, or Sima ....
 has been subducted under the North American plate
North American Plate

The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Greenland and part of Siberia. It extends eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and westward to the Chersky Range in eastern Siberia....
, and the Eurasian plate
Eurasian Plate

The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate which includes most of the continent of Eurasia , with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent, and the area east of the Chersky Range in East Siberia....
. Panthalassa's oceanic plate remnants may be the Juan de Fuca Plate
Juan de Fuca Plate

The Juan de Fuca Plate, named after the Juan de Fuca, is a tectonic plate arising from the Juan de Fuca Ridge, and subduction under the northerly portion of the western side of the North American Plate at the Cascadia subduction zone....
, Gorda plate
Gorda Plate

The Gorda Plate, located beneath the Pacific Ocean off the coast of northern California, is one of the northern remnants of the Farallon Plate. It is sometimes referred to as simply the southernmost portion of the neighboring Juan de Fuca Plate, another Farallon remnant....
, Cocos Plate
Cocos Plate

The Cocos Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate beneath the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Central America, named for Cocos Island, which rides upon it....
, and the Nazca plate
Nazca Plate

The Nazca Plate, named after the Nazca region of southern Peru, is an oceanic tectonic plate in the eastern Pacific Ocean basin off the west coast of South America....
, all four of which, were part of the Farallon Plate
Farallon Plate

The Farallon Plate was an ancient oceanic plate, which began subducting under the west coast of the North American Plate— then located in modern Utah— as Pangaea broke apart during the Jurassic period....
. The Pacific Ocean evolved from Panthalassa after the break-up of the supercontinent of Pangaea
Pangaea

Pangaea, Pang?a or Pangea was the supercontinent that existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras about 250 million years ago, before the component continents were separated into their current configuration....
, which means, "all the earth."

See also

  • Plate tectonics
    Plate tectonics

    Plate tectonics describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere. The theory encompasses the older concepts of continental drift, developed during the first decades of the 20th century by Alfred Wegener, and seafloor spreading, understood during the 1960s....
  • Paleontology
    Paleontology

    File:Geological time spiral - sharper.pngPaleontology from Greek: pa?a??? "old, ancient", ??, ??t- "being, creature", and ????? "speech, thought" is the study of prehistory life, including organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments ....
  • Pangaea
    Pangaea

    Pangaea, Pang?a or Pangea was the supercontinent that existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras about 250 million years ago, before the component continents were separated into their current configuration....
  • Pacific Ring of Fire
    Pacific Ring of Fire

    The Pacific Ring of Fire is an area of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions encircling the basin of the Pacific Ocean. In a 40,000 km horseshoe shape, it is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and/or plate movements....


External links