Pangea Tattoo Meaning

Wholeness, origin, separation, and the memory of a world once joined.

Pangea is the memory of a world once joined — the single supercontinent in which all of Earth's lands were one before they broke apart and drifted into the separate continents of today, the image of an original wholeness from which all the world's separations began. To carry Pangea is to carry wholeness, origin, separation, and the memory of a world once joined — the all-earth before the continents parted, the complementary coastlines that still remember they were one, the unity from which all the world's diversity diverged.

Pangea (also Pangaea, from the Greek pan, 'all,' and gaia, 'earth' — the 'all-earth') was the supercontinent in which all of Earth's land was joined together as one. It formed approximately 335 million years ago, as the drifting landmasses of the ancient earth converged into a single vast continent, and it began breaking apart approximately 175 million years ago, as that supercontinent slowly rifted and split. During its existence, all of Earth's current land masses were joined in a single continent, an immense unbroken expanse of land surrounded by a single global ocean, the superocean Panthalassa ('all-sea') that covered the rest of the world.

The breakup of Pangea shaped the world we know. As the supercontinent rifted apart over millions of years, it first split into two great landmasses: Laurasia in the north (which would become North America, Europe, and Asia) and Gondwana in the south (which would become South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and India). These in turn broke further and drifted apart, the fragments slowly moving across the face of the earth on their tectonic plates to become the separate continents of today, carried to their present positions over the ages. The continents we know — and the oceans between them — are the scattered pieces of Pangea, the broken fragments of that single ancient land, still drifting. Pangea is thus the original whole from which the present arrangement of the world was made: the one great continent, the all-earth, that existed before the lands were sundered and dispersed into the separate continents of the modern world. Pangea was the supercontinent of all Earth's joined lands — it formed ~335 Mya, broke apart ~175 Mya into Laurasia and Gondwana, the fragments becoming today's continents. The scientific Pangea is the supercontinent — Pangea (from Greek pan 'all' + gaia 'earth') was the supercontinent that formed ~335 million years ago and began breaking apart ~175 million years ago, all of Earth's current land masses joined in a single continent surrounded by the superocean Panthalassa; the breakup produced Laurasia (which became North America, Europe, Asia) and Gondwana (which became South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, India) — the continents of today the scattered, still-drifting fragments of that single ancient land, the original whole from which the present arrangement of the world was made.

Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift in 1912 CE based on the complementary shapes of the Atlantic coastlines and the distribution of fossil species — he was ridiculed by mainstream geology for decades; the mechanism (plate tectonics) was not understood until the 1960s when seafloor spreading was discovered (Harry Hess, 1960 CE) and the theory was confirmed. Wegener named the supercontinent Pangaea (all earth) in Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane (The Origin of Continents and Oceans, 1915 CE). The complementary coastlines of South America and Africa fit with remarkable precision — the fit becomes even better when continental shelves (the true edge of the continents) are used rather than current coastlines. Pangea was not the first supercontinent — it was preceded by Rodinia (c. 1.1 billion years ago) and Nuna/Columbia (c. 1.8 billion years ago); the earth has had multiple cycles of supercontinent formation and breakup. The next supercontinent (Amasia or Pangea Proxima) is predicted to form in approximately 250 million years.

Pangea across cultures

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