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Over a century ago, German scientist, Alfred Wegener suggested that all the continents were once one large landmass, which he called pangaea. The first thing the noticed was when they realized how all the continents fit together almost perfectly, followed along by magnetic minerals migrating over time, and finally, similar fossils found in different continents, such as the glossopteris an extinct fern seed which is spread widely across all the continents. He then found evidence of warm weather plant fossils in spitsbergen and suggested that
Pangaea started to form over 480 million years, with a continent called Laurentia. Laurentia was a mix of parts from North America, Gondwana, Africa, Australia, South America, and the Indian subcontinent. About 200 million years ago, the continent started to break up, starting with gondwana  which soon after, became what is today South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and the Indian subcontinent. Over 100 million years later North America went it's own path, which left eurasia there alone.

In spitsbergen there have been fossil evidence of warm weather plants found in the arctic ocean which Alfred Wegener proposed as a sign that it had drifted away to colder areas and were probably covered in ice

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in 2017 scientists M. Santhosh and Masaki Yoshida created 3D simulations to better understand the movements of the continents since 200 million years ago when Pangaea started to break apart. The models show how the tectonic plates moved to cause continental drift. They also predict what will happen 250 million years in the future. They show that Australia, North America, Africa, and Eurasia will become one big continent and Antarctica and South America will come together as a separate continent.

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When there are several different continents climate and life on earth can vary. According to the text, "Having one massive landmass would have made for a very different climatic cycles." The provides the evidence that having one larger land could affect the way the moisture and rainfall can reach the land. This is mainly due to the fact that there are mountains that surround that land, However the text says that the coal deposits that were found in the United States and Europe this show that that land must have been swampy lush land in different parts of different continents. Models have shown that the inner Pangaea was very seasonal. The existence of Pangaea lasted for about 100 million years. Throughout this time many animals thrive during this time.  One of them being the Traversodontidae. When life was one Pangaea Beetles and Dragonflies  had a very large population during the Permian period. However during Triassic period archosaurs developed which where a group of animals which later became reptiles and bird.

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The current way the continents are set up will probably not be the last. Supercontinents have been formed several times overall, and they have always split up into smaller continents, like the ones we have today. Like right now, Australia is slowly crawling towards Asia. Geologists have noticed that there is a cycle in which supercontinents form and break up around every 300-400 million years, but we don't know exactly why. But, most scientists believe that the cycle is driven by circulation dynamics in the mantle. The mantle is the layer between the earth's crust and its core, and it makes up 84% of earths volume. But after that, the details get fuzzy. The heat formed in the mantle most likely comes from radioactive decay of elements that are unstable, like uranium, for example. Scientists also don't agree on whether there are mini pockets of heat flow within the mantle, or if the entire shell is one is one big warmth conveyor belt.