17. The world's original landmass, from which today's continents and other major landmasses emerged, was called Pangaea. What, however, was the name of the world's first ocean?
From Quiz A Strange Tour
Answer:
Panthalassa
The word Pangaea actually derives from the Greek word 'pangaia', which translates roughly as 'all earth'). The concept was created by a meteorologist, Alfred Wegener (German) in 1912. Basically, today's continents were all grouped together into one large supercontinent, Pangaea. This landmass has been said to have covered either approximately one-quarter or one-half of the Earth's surface and stretched in a narrow belt of about 60 degrees of longitude between the two poles. It consisted of a group of northern continents, collectively called Laurasia, and a group of southern continents, collectively called Gondwana. Pangaea was surrounded by Panthalassa, an enormous ocean which extended to approximately twice the width of today's Pacific Ocean at the equator and reached both of the poles. During the end of the Triassic Period (245 to 208 million years ago), the landmass began to split into its segments of Laurasia (which contained all of today's northern continents) and Gondwanaland (which contained all of today's southern continents). The split resulted in the early Atlantic Ocean. The Panthalassa was not simply a huge body of water surrounding Pangaea, however, it also contained numerous islands, volcanic archipelagoes and other areas such as reefs. Part of it even extended deep into Pangaea roughly where today's present Mediterranean Sea lies. It was called the Tethys.
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