Laurasia Laurasia Laurasia () was the more northern of two supercontinents (the other being Gondwana) that formed part of the Pangaea supercontinent around (Mya). It separated from Gondwana (beginning in the late Triassic period) during the breakup of Pangaea, drifting farther north after the split. The name combines the names of Laurentia, the name given to the North American craton, and Eurasia. As suggested by the geologic naming, Laurasia included most of the land masses which make up today's continents of the Northern Hemisphere, chiefly Laurentia, Baltica, Siberia, Kazakhstania, and the North China and East China cratons. Although Laurasia is known
Pangaea closing the Paleo-Tethys Ocean, but forming a new ocean, the Tethys Ocean, in its southern end. Most of the landmasses were all in one. By the Triassic Period, Pangaea rotated a little and the Cimmerian plate was still travelling across the shrinking Paleo-Tethys, until the Middle Jurassic. The Paleo-Tethys had closed from west to east, creating the Cimmerian Orogeny. Pangaea, which looked like a "C", with the new Tethys Ocean inside the "C", had rifted by the Middle Jurassic, and its deformation is explained below. Fossil evidence for Pangaea includes the presence of similar and identical species on continents that