What If Pangaea Never Broke Apart

The concept of what life would be like if Pangaea, the supercontinent that existed 200 million years ago, never broke apart is explored through its impacts on Earth's geography, climate, and life.

around 3 to 200 million years ago all the continents were stuck together as one big land mass over time they moved apart and formed the continents we have today that giant land mass was called Pangia and the Earth looked very different back then which begs the question what would our life be like if that split never occurred well let's find out in simple words tectonic plates are big chunk of the Earth's outer shell our planet is like a puzzle of land mass and these plates are the pieces since the Earth is so incredibly hot inside its heat influences the rocky ground above the core slightly melted rocks start floating in the ocean of scorched magma this movement creates the tectonic plates and they're always moving just really slowly which is why we don't notice it their movement has been a fundamental Force shaping the Earth's surface climate and the evolution of Life over millions of years for example when two plates bump into each other one might go under the other or they might slide past each other sometimes they pull apart all these movements create things like earthquakes and volcanoes and when plates push against each other it can make the land go up creating mountains so the big mountain ranges on earth like the Himalayas formed because tectonic plates were pushing into each other now here's the thing with Pangia in a supercontinent all tectonic plates are united and they don't really move well at least not a lot like they do now so if Pangia remained intact for billions of years everything in our world would look completely different for example we wouldn't have many mountain ranges anymore no Alps Himalayas and Andes what a nightmare that would be for ski lovers but there's an upside to that too no continental drift means much less disasters in our world all our earthquakes tsunamis and volcanic eruptions would be much rarer and calmer or might not occur at all however hurricanes would keep existing and they could be crazy strong with Pangia being one huge lump of land the rest of the world will be water stretching from the west to east that's just a free water slide for a hurricane please feel free to build up an intensity without anything to bump into so once it finally reaches us prepare for category 5 or even stronger hurricanes or tornadoes they'd be regular visitors too and if you decided to live in eastern Pangia yep you're doomed the way the continents are arranged also affects how the oceans move move and the weather behaves in Pangia the climate would be very different across the globe the middle of our superc continent would be super weird right in the center we'd have a huge dry desert but there would also be dense cool rainforests along the borders of this desert why because Pangia is so massive and Rain from the ocean wouldn't reach far enough in land so it would be stacking up around the edge this would make some parts of the land not so great for anything rain and water would wear down the land flattening Hills and carrying away soil over a long time eventually Pangia might even shrink and disappear underwater closer to the edges of Pangia the weather might be more mild or tropical up north it would be warmer than it is now and finally we'd have some understanding of Seasons but we'd have no idea that it becomes harder for you to breathe as you go higher so how would all this affect living things well bad Pangia would be awful for the variety of life on Earth history shows that having separate pieces of land is very important for life it was a big reason why new kinds of species appear for example Madagascar an island that broke off from Pangia was isolated for millions of years which is why it has many plants and animals not found anywhere else fewer isolated lands like Madagascar and Australia mean less cool and unique plants and animals the climate problem doesn't go away either almost all Pangia would be hot and dry inside but it wouldn't be all too boring there would still be some environments for animals to live in reptiles like dinosaurs might do well in this kind of climate that's one reason why dinosaurs thrived when the whole world was one big land mass before mammals came around also this might push for the development of creatures that can live in water they'd be more diverse and bigger in size so basically Pangia is a master of creating Earth as dangerous for humans as possible with all this in mind let's finally see how humanity is doing assuming that we survived and Evolved first of all where would your country be located in theory you could take a road trip from Brazil to Canada because they'd be part of the same huge land mass North America would be right here and Europe would be just east of it most of Asia would be up north and Antarctica would stay down south Australia would still be in the middle of nowhere a literal Antarctica would be closer to everyone than Australia that's assuming that country stayed the same and hey cool news all our modern countries might not exist at all okay that didn't sound as good as intended more precisely the countries would have completely different boundaries and the world would be much more peaceful and United let's see first we'd form some tribes but since we would share the land we'd have to compromise we can't all have the only Coast or only Inland regions each tribe would probably get a fair piece of the land so that everyone could meet in the middle to settle problems or make trade agreements as tribes got bigger people would move move to new lands separated by deserts and forests forming their own Nations the hunter gatherer era might take some more time since we have fewer animals and plants if we started hunting we'd probably wipe out all the big animals pretty quickly except for the ones we could potentially domesticate imagine having dinosaurs as pets but the whole super continent would quickly enter the agricultural era because whatever Technologies we discover we share them with each other right away the main difference would be that during our age of exploration there would be mostly small isolated Islands to discover travel and trade would be easier too cultures would be less distant from each other compared to our world for example right now Native American culture is very different from Pacific island culture because they've been separated by water for a long time but on Pangia cultures might form a continuous line from the southern tip to the northern tip which means all cultures would be very closely related and that wouldn't be the only similarity our appearances would be very much alike as well since Earth is still tilted on its axis the very North and South will stay cooler so even though some people would still have white skin and blonde hair in general everyone would still have less melanin around the central part where the sun is always shining most people will still have dark or tanned skin this could create a more similar world where people could see themselves as Global Citizens and earthlings the sad part is we probably wouldn't be as motivated for technological progress as we are now all the land is already known there's no need to explore the weather is mostly good and warm the crops are growing well the neighbors are hopefully peaceful which is why humans would be fine with things as they are we'd probably stick to basic tools and science of course we're naturally curious creatures so we'd still have some progress it just would be very slow compared to our world what sounds boring for some might sound awesome for us our life would be less exciting but we'd be more united and peaceful maybe in a world like that we learn to treat each other with more kindness and love.