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LITHOEN

Geological event

Breakup of Pangaea

The dispersal of Pangaea from Triassic through Jurassic time. The Mississippi Valley-type model records that few deposits of that class formed during it — a period of major plate dispersal producing few of the basins and few of the fluid drives that the class requires.

Classification

event kind
breakup
timing resolution
broadlyAssigned

How this record is known

1
Settled consensus
Cited as the accepted position of the discipline.

1 of 1 claims on this page cite at least one registered source. Counts describe how each statement is known, not how likely it is to be true.

What Lithoen records

Each claim states how it is known and cites its evidence.

Established251.902–143.1 Ma before present

The USGS Mississippi Valley-type model places the rapid breakup of Pangaea in Triassic through Jurassic time, and records that few deposits of that class formed during it. On the ICS 2024/12 chart that interval runs from 251.902 Ma to 143.1 Ma.

Not stated verbatim by the source — derived: period names from the deposit model x boundary ages from the ICS 2024/12 chart -> numeric interval

The deposit model names the periods and never gives numbers; the chart gives the numbers and never mentions Pangaea. Neither premise carries the claim alone, and the claim is the composition of the two.

  • precision note: An absence during this interval is the observation, and it is a more informative one than a presence: the system needs something continental assembly supplies and dispersal does not.
  • temporal basis: An earlier version gave the interval as 252–145 Ma and stated that its bounds came from the ICS chart in this corpus. The end bound did not: the chart places the base of the Cretaceous, and so the top of the Jurassic, at 143.1 Ma, not 145 Ma. 145 Ma belongs to an earlier timescale. The bounds are now read from the chart the claim cites, and that chart is now carried as evidence rather than named in a qualifier.

Evidence support: Derived from the cited evidence 2 sources, multiple sources, independence unknown

Evidence: Leach 2010 Primary authority; Cohen 2024 Primary authority

In the knowledge graph

Record last updated 2026-09-07. Corrections follow the published corrections policy; superseded claims are retained, never silently edited.