Geology of the Appalachians craton. The collisional belt spread into the Ozark-Ouachita region and through the Marathon Mountains area of Texas. Continent vs. continent collision raised the Appalachian-Ouachita chain to a lofty mountain range on the scale of the present-day Himalaya. The massive bulk of Pangea was completed near the end of the Paleozoic Era (Permian Period) when Africa (Gondwana) plowed into the continental agglomeration, with the Appalachian-Ouachita mountains near the core. Pangea began to break up about 220 million years ago, in the Early Mesozoic Era (Late Triassic Period). As Pangea rifted apart a new passive tectonic margin was born and the forces
Mesangiospermae are fossil mesangiosperms from the Hauterivian stage of the Cretaceous period. Molecular clock comparisons of DNA sequences indicate that the mesangiosperms originated between 140 and 150 Mya (million years ago) near the beginning of the Cretaceous period. This was about 25 Ma (million years) after the origin of the angiosperms in the mid-Jurassic. By 135Mya, the mesangiosperms had radiated into 5 groups: Chloranthales, Magnoliids, Monocots, Ceratophyllales, and Eudicots. The radiation into 5 groups probably occurred in about 4 million years. Because the interval of this radiation (about 4 million years) is short in proportion to its age (about 145 million