Continental Faces
Earth's Changeable Face
Both the Earth's surface and its interior are always in motion, forever changing the planet's appearance.
Plates move very slowly, usually only a few inches a year. Scientists believe it took millions of years for the continents to come together and form Pangea.
However, around 20 million years after Pangea had formed, the same forces that brought the plates together forced them apart. The supercontinent eventually became dismembered, creating two separate landmasses. Laurasia was found in the Northern Hemisphere and Gondwanaland in the Southern Hemisphere.
These two continents eventually split into seven continents. This break up took approximately 250 million years to complete and left the Earth with the current, yet still changing, position of the continents.