Pangaea

By the emergence of the Cretaceous Period, Pangaea had completely splintered into separate continents and islands.

Several hundred million years ago, during the time when Earth had a single supercontinent called Pangaea, ancient plants endured a punishing ice age.

Based on the environmental and anatomical constraints they identified, the team found that plants probably could have grown in many places across Pangaea.

A new analysis based on fossilized plants and climate models indicates that these frigid conditions would have limited tree cover across Pangaea.

More research is also needed on the poorly-understood topography of Pangaea, which is another important variable that would have influenced forest cover and climate during the ice age, he adds.

This happens again and again in Pangaea: the seemingly playful signifies something else unequivocally serious and real.