What was the climate like on Pangaea?

1 Answer
Mar 1, 2016

Probably no one single climate, but a number of different climates.

Explanation:

Pangea covered a very large part of the globe as all of the current continents were smushed up into one big continent. This large land mass extended from nearly the south to north polar regions, thus a number of climate belts would likely have existed (see pic).

The same factors that control climate today, would have been at work in the Permian on Pangea. E.G. latitude controlling temperature, circulation patterns of ocean currents, and large atmospheric circulation cells, like the Hadley cell.

Just before Pangea started to breakup, there was a mass extinction global warming event that may have been precipitated by a massive release of basalts in what is now northern Siberia.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7035/full/nature03393.html