Abstract

According to current views, Pangaea is most generally held to have come together in the late Palaeozoic and separated in the early Mesozoic, with a wide eastward facing “Tethyan Gulf and India far from Asia.

There are, however, divergent and contradictory views as to when in the late Palaeozoic Pangaea formed and perhaps even greater differences on the time of break-up. The configuration of Pangaea also has many variations.

Early reconstructions did not show a wide gulf nor India distant from Asia. These features are not based on geological information but are, apparently, a result of mathematical calculations based mainly on supposed fit, taking into account ocean floor magnetic anomalies. The fit of all the continents together, especially on a world of present size is, however, poor. This has encouraged the theory of earth expansion.

A large body of geological data gives a strong indication that India was never far from Asia and there was no wide Tethyan Gulf. The wide Tethyan Gulf has led to the idea of transfer of blocks from Gondwanaland to Laurasia to overcome the problem, but this has led to increased difficulties. Examination of the geological data also shows problems in placing various parts of Gondwanaland close to each other and separating Australia from southern and Southeast Asia. Climate and climatic change is not readily explained by Pangaea, as currently conceived.

Considerable evidence suggests that the distribution of land and sea during the late Palaeozoic and early Mesozoic differed considerably from the present and that, for example, a large part of the Indian Ocean may have been land. To understand the geological development of this time a multiple hypothesis approach might be the most fruitful, and might save geological sciences from a future loss of credibility.