Geological history of Earth with highly seasonal rainfall patterns. Deserts seem to have been widespread on Pangaea. The Mesozoic extended roughly from . After the vigorous convergent plate mountain-building of the late Paleozoic, Mesozoic tectonic deformation was comparatively mild. Nevertheless, the era featured the dramatic rifting of the supercontinent Pangaea. Pangaea gradually split into a northern continent, Laurasia, and a southern continent, Gondwana. This created the passive continental margin that characterizes most of the Atlantic coastline (such as along the U.S. East Coast) today. The Triassic Period extends from about 252.17 ± 0.06 to 201.3 ± 0.2 Ma. During the Triassic, almost all the
Mandla Plant Fossils National Park some work on the plant fossils of Mandla, though the study is yet in a preliminary stage. In Ghuguwa and Umaria the standing, petrified trunks of trees have been identified as Gymnosperms and Angiosperms- Monocotyledons and palms. There are certain Bryophytes also. There is some question about whether the fossils are from the late Jurassic or the early and mid Cretaceous age. This is because when the breakup of the single land mass, Pangaea occurred, it was split by the continental drift into Laurasia and Gondwana somewhere between the Jurassic and Cretaceous ages. India formed a part of Gondwana. Depending