Permian have in part caused the widespread extinctions of marine species at the end of the period by severely reducing shallow coastal areas preferred by many marine organisms. During the Permian, all the Earth's major landmasses were collected into a single supercontinent known as Pangaea. Pangaea straddled the equator and extended toward the poles, with a corresponding effect on ocean currents in the single great ocean ("Panthalassa", the "universal sea"), and the Paleo-Tethys Ocean, a large ocean that existed between Asia and Gondwana. The Cimmeria continent rifted away from Gondwana and drifted north to Laurasia, causing the Paleo-Tethys Ocean to shrink.
Supercontinent Neoarchean age broke off at ~2480 and and portions of them later collided to form Nuna (Northern Europe North America) (). Nuna continued to develop during the Mesoproterozoic, primarily by lateral accretion of juvenile arcs, and in Nuna collided with other land masses, forming Rodinia. Between ~825 and Rodinia broke apart. However, before completely breaking up, some fragments of Rodinia had already come together to form Gondwana (also known as Gondwanaland) by . Pangaea formed by through the collision of Gondwana, Laurasia (Laurentia and Baltica), and Siberia. The second model (Kenorland-Arctica) is based on both palaeomagnetic and geological evidence and