Gondwana assembles
Fragments of Rodinia collide to form Gondwana, a giant southern landmass joining Africa, South America, Antarctica, India and Australia. It later becomes part of Pangaea.
The story
Gondwana was a giant southern landmass that formed about 550 million years ago, when fragments left by the breakup of Rodinia collided in a series of mountain-building events, known in Africa as the Pan-African orogeny. It joined what are now Africa, South America, Antarctica, Australia, India, Arabia and Madagascar, and for long stretches it sat over or near the South Pole. The Austrian geologist Eduard Suess named it in 1885 after a region of central India, where related fossils and rocks had been described.
Gondwana drifted through many climates. Around 440 million years ago, ice covered parts of what is now the Sahara, and about 300 million years ago glaciers spread across the southern continents. It also carried a shared fossil record: leaves of the seed fern Glossopteris occur in South America, Africa, India, Australia and Antarctica, one of the clues Alfred Wegener used to argue that continents had moved. Around 335 million years ago Gondwana merged with northern landmasses to make Pangaea, and it began to split apart about 180 million years ago.
Why it mattered
- Pangaea formed when Gondwana united with the northern continents.
- Shared fossils across southern continents gave early evidence for continental drift.
- Its later breakup isolated Australia, Antarctica and South America, setting up unique marsupials and other lineages.
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