Geology of Ohio terrestrial environment since the Permian. For instance, the main subdivisions of the Pennsylvanian: the Pottsville Group, Alleghany Group, Conemaugh Group and Monongahela Group, along with the Early Permian Dunkard Group, are each more terrestrial than the last. The region was situated inland, experiencing terrestrial erosion as the Proto-North American continent of Laurasia collided with Gondwana to form the supercontinent Pangaea. Rocks from the end of Paleozoic are best exposed in road cuts along I-77, between Canton and Marietta, I-77 from Cambridge to Bridgeport and cliffs on the Ohio River north of Marietta to East Liverpool. For 245 million years, spanning
Pangean megamonsoon solar insolation shifted toward the Southern Hemisphere. Air then traveled from Laurasia (region of high pressure), across the Tethys Ocean to Gondwana (region of low pressure). Moisture advection toward the Southern Hemisphere would have fueled heavy precipitation along the Gondwana coasts, while Laurasia remained very dry. There are marked similarities between factors contributing to the East Asian monsoon and those that would have influenced Pangean climate. This not only supports the theory that Pangean climate was dominated by the monsoon, but also aids in the study of it, providing paleoclimatologists with a present-day example to which they can compare their