Opening of the North Atlantic Ocean Plateau (off Norway), Faroe-Shetland Basin, Hebrides, Outer Moray Firth and Denmark. The supercontinent known as Pangea existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras and began to rift around 200 million years ago. Pangea had three major phases of breakup. The first major phase began in the Early-Middle Jurassic, taking place between North America and Africa. The second major phase of breakup began in the Early Cretaceous. The South Atlantic Ocean opened around 140 million years ago as Africa separated from South America, and about the same time, India separated from Antarctica and Australia, forming the central Indian Ocean.
Geology of the Seychelles 85 million years ago as the Mascarene ocean basin formed. The Deccan Traps hotspot, which poured out immense basalt flows in India 65 million years ago and ultimately formed islands such as Mauritius and Réunion, isolated Seychelles. The microcontinent was confined between northern Madagascar and western India until the Late Cretaceous and evolved during the Cenozoic through a process of rift and drift tectonics. The microcontinent was uplifted, eroded and impacted by volcanic eruptions. In the early Cenozoic, around 63 million years ago, alkaline plutonic and volcanic rocks emplaced to become the Silhouette and North islands. Seychelles sources most of