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.
South German Jurassic South German Jurassic The term South German Jurassic () in earth history is used to refer to a lithostratigraphic rock unit at the hierarchical level of a super group. The rocks of the South German Jurassic were mainly deposited during the Jurassic period about 199 to 146 million years ago. The boundaries of the South German Jurassic and those of the chronostratigraphic or international Jurassic are not, however, exactly coincident. The depositions began rather later than the date of the international Triassic/Jurassic boundary and end as a result of erosion of the uppermost strata at various times during the Upper