I know there was a Pangaea at one point in history that broke into the continents of today, but I could have sworn there was another instance in Earth's history that there was a super continent, maybe even more, so how many in total?
1 Answer
According to a review by Nance & Murphy (2013), there are five known supercontinents, from the most recent to the most ancient:
- Pangea (of course)
- Pannotia (though it depends on how you define supercontinent), ca. 600 Ma
- Rodinia, breakup at ca. 750 Ma (see e. g. Torsvik, 2003)
- Columbia (also called Nuna), ca. 1.6 Ga
- Kenorland, ca. 2.7 Ga
Some additional ones such as Vaalbara in the Archean are still mostly speculative.