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.
Gulf Keystone Petroleum is notably one of the largest Super Giant oilfields discovered in the last 50 years. Shaikan was declared a commercial discovery on August 1, 2012 following a five-well appraisal program. Initially independent estimates place the gross oil-in-place (OIP) volume at 13.7 billion barrels (P50) potentially making it one of the largest oilfields discovered in Iraqi Kurdistan. The oilfield covers an area of some , and comprises a series of limestone reservoirs stacked upon each other. These reservoirs encompass a very long period of geological time, from the Cretaceous which ended some 65 million years ago to the Triassic, which began