In
geology, a
supercontinent is the assembly of most or all of the
Earth's
continental blocks or
cratons to form a single large landmass. However, the definition of a supercontinent can be ambiguous. Many earth scientists, such as P.F. Hoffman (1999), use the term "supercontinent" to mean "a clustering of nearly all continents". This definition leaves room for interpretation when labeling a continental body and is easier to apply to
Precambrian times. Using the first definition provided here,
Gondwana (aka Gondwanaland) is not considered a supercontinent, because the landmasses of
Baltica,
Laurentia and
Siberia also existed at the same time but physically separate from each other. The landmass of
Pangaea is the collective name describing all of these continental masses when they were in a close proximity to one another. This would classify
Pangaea as a supercontinent. According to the definition by Rogers and Santosh (2004), a supercontinent does not exist today. Supercontinents have assembled and dispersed multiple times in the geologic past (see table). The positions of continents have been accurately determined back to the early
Jurassic. However, beyond , continental positions are much less certain.
