By Ayo Akinfe
(1) Not surprisingly, our colonial masters never taught us anything about Pangea. This was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras, assembled from earlier continental units approximately 335m years ago.
(2) Pangea began to break apart about 175m years ago. years ago. In contrast to Earth and its distribution of continental mass, much of Pangaea was in the southern hemisphere and was surrounded by a superocean called Panthalassa
(3) From what we know so far, Pangaea was the most recent supercontinent to have existed and the first to be reconstructed by geologists
(4) Do you know that the concept that continents once formed a contiguous land mass was first proposed by Alfred Wegener, the originator of the scientific theory of continental drift in his 1912 publication The Origin of Continents. He later expanded upon his hypothesis in his 1915 book The Origin of Continents and Oceans, in which he postulated that, before breaking up and drifting to their present locations, all the continents had formed a single supercontinent that he called the Urkontinent
(4) For the approximately 160m years Pangea existed, many species did well, whereas others struggled. Traversodonts for instance were an example of such successful animals. Plants dependent on spore reproduction were largely replaced by the gymnosperms, which reproduce through the use of seeds
(5) Later on, insects, including beetles and cicadas, also thrived during the Permian period 299m to 252m years ago. However, the Permian extinction greatly impacted these insects in mass extinction, being the only mass extinction to affect insects
(6) When the Triassic Period came, many reptiles were able to also thrive, including Archosaurs, which were an ancestor to modern-day crocodiles and birds
(7) This reconfiguration of continents and oceans after the breakup of Pangea changed the world’s climate. There is scientific evidence to show that this change was drastic. When the continents separated and reformed themselves, it changed the flow of the oceanic currents and winds
(8) Do you know there is evidence to suggest that the deterioration of northern Pangaea contributed to the Permian Extinction, one of Earth’s five major mass extinction events, which resulted in the loss of over 90% of marine and 70% of terrestrial species. As you can see, man is actually a very recent arrival on the scene. Other species have lived here long before us
(9) Given that present day Nigeria was almost in the centre of Pangea, who knows what we might find if we treated archeology seriously? I am perplexed as to why we have not uncovered at least one dinosaur skeleton yet. I am sure that if we check the banks of the Rivers Niger and Benue, we will find something
(10) Who is to say Nigeria is not sitting on a multi billion dollar Jurassic treasure trove? Our problems are that we have been so brainwashed we are too intellectually lazy to explore fresh answers and we have become so bone idle, we believe that the only wealth beneath our feet are fossil fuels
