A Billion Years of Continents
A billion years ago the land was locked in the supercontinent Rodinia. Since then the continents have split, scattered, regathered as Pangaea, and split again into the world we know. Drag the globe, scrub the timeline, or press play to watch it all unfold.
An earlier supercontinent
Long before Pangaea, most of Earth's land was gathered into a supercontinent called Rodinia. Life existed only as microbes and algae in the sea — the continents were barren rock. Reconstructions this far back are uncertain, but the broad picture is one of land clustered together.
Rodinia breaks apart
Rodinia rifts into fragments. Not long after, the planet plunges into the most extreme ice ages in its history — "Snowball Earth" — with glaciers reaching the tropics.
Continents regather near the pole
The drifting pieces briefly reassemble into Pannotia over the South Pole. In the surrounding seas the Ediacaran biota — Earth's earliest complex animals — appear.
Gondwana in the south
A vast southern supercontinent, Gondwana, has assembled, while smaller continents — Laurentia, Baltica and Siberia — scatter across the tropics. The Cambrian explosion fills the oceans with animal life.
Continents on a collision course
Oceans close as continents converge; Laurentia and Baltica weld into Euramerica. Plants and the first animals colonise the land, greening the bare continents.
A single supercontinent
Almost all of Earth's land is welded together into Pangaea, a C-shaped supercontinent straddling the equator and ringed by one vast global ocean, Panthalassa. In principle you could walk from what is now Canada to Australia without crossing the sea.
Pangaea at its peak
The supercontinent reaches its greatest assembly. Its arid interior bakes far from any coast. Around 252 Ma the end-Permian extinction — the most severe in Earth's history — erases the majority of marine and land species.
The great break-up begins
Deep rifts tear Pangaea apart. The Central Atlantic starts to open, prising North America away from Africa. Molten rock floods the cracks as a new ocean is born.
Laurasia and Gondwana
Pangaea splits into a northern landmass, Laurasia, and a southern one, Gondwana. Dinosaurs dominate a warm, ice-free greenhouse world as shallow seas spread across the continents.
The South Atlantic opens
South America and Africa unzip from south to north, opening the South Atlantic. The jigsaw fit of their coastlines — Brazil's bulge into the Gulf of Guinea — is a fossil of this rift.
Oceans at their widest
Sea levels are among the highest ever and the continents are scattered. India has broken free of Gondwana and is racing north across the Tethys Ocean, faster than any plate moves today.
Impact and aftermath
A 10-kilometre asteroid strikes near Yucatán and the non-avian dinosaurs vanish. The map already looks broadly modern, though the continents still sit closer together than they do now.
India slams into Asia
India crashes into Eurasia and keeps pushing. The crumpled crust piles up into the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau — mountains that are still rising today.
Almost the modern world
The continents settle close to their present positions. Australia drifts north away from Antarctica, grasslands spread across the drying interiors, and mammals diversify.
The world you know
Seven continents sit in their familiar places — yet they are still on the move, drifting a few centimetres each year, about as fast as your fingernails grow. Given enough time, a new supercontinent will assemble all over again.
About this map
How was it built?
Each era's coastlines are reconstructed with a plate-tectonic model that rewinds the continents to their positions at a given geological age, then drawn on a globe.
How accurate is it?
Reconstructions are best estimates from paleomagnetism, seafloor spreading and geology. Uncertainty grows the further back you go, especially before 200 million years ago.
Why do continents move?
Plate tectonics: Earth's rigid outer shell is broken into plates that ride on the slowly churning mantle beneath, splitting apart and colliding over millions of years.
How do I explore it?
Drag the globe to spin it, drag the timeline to travel through time, tap an era chip to jump, or press Play to watch the whole journey unfold.
Reconstruction: Merdith et al. (2021), EarthByte / GPlates (CC BY 4.0)
Coastline reconstructions via the GPlates Web Service (EarthByte). Rendered on a D3 globe.