Continents 258 million years ago, illustration. Elliptical projection of the Earth's continents as they appeared during the Permian Period (299 to 252 million years ago). The alignment of the continents shown here dates to around 258 million years ago, before the break up of the supercontinent called Pangea. The Pangea supercontinent (consisting of Gondwana and Laurasia) formed around 300 million years ago and began to break up around 200 million years ago to form the continents as we know them today. For labelled and unlabelled sequences of illustrations of the continents from 390 to 65 million years ago, before and after the formation and breakup of Pangea, see images C046/9220 to C046/9231. For a labelled version of this map, see image C046/9223.