Gondwana Massif have been dated at 320–330 million years old, indicating that the subduction process initiated in the early Carboniferous.This was relatively short lived (lasting about 20 million years), and initial contact of the two landmasses occurred in the mid-Carboniferous, with broader collision during the early Permian. In the Devonian an island arc named Chaitenia accreted to Patagonia in what is now south-central Chile. Gondwana and Laurasia formed the Pangaea supercontinent during the Carboniferous. Pangaea began to break up in the Mid-Jurassic when the Central Atlantic opened. In the western end of Pangaea, the collision between Gondwana and Laurasia closed the
Geological history of Earth seaway of Iapetus Ocean (now in between Avalonia and Laurentia), and newly formed Ural Ocean. The Devonian spanned roughly from 419 to 359 Ma. The period was a time of great tectonic activity, as Laurasia and Gondwana drew closer together. The continent Euramerica (or Laurussia) was created in the early Devonian by the collision of Laurentia and Baltica, which rotated into the natural dry zone along the Tropic of Capricorn. In these near-deserts, the Old Red Sandstone sedimentary beds formed, made red by the oxidized iron (hematite) characteristic of drought conditions. Near the equator Pangaea began to consolidate from the