<P> The formation of Pangaea and its mountains had a tremendous impact on global climate and sea levels, which resulted in glaciations and continent - wide sedimentation . In North America, the base of the Absaroka sequence coincides with the Alleghanian and Ouachita orogenies and are indicative of a large - scale change in the mode of deposition far away from the Pangaean orogenies . Ultimately, these changes contributed to the Permian--Triassic extinction event and left large deposits of hydrocarbons, coal, evaporite, and metals . </P> <P> The reformed Gondwanan continent was not precisely the same as that which had existed before Pangaea formed; for example, most of Florida and southern Georgia and Alabama is underlain by rocks that were originally part of Gondwana, but this region stayed attached to North America when the Atlantic opened . </P> <P> Gondwana began to break up in the early Jurassic and the early Cretaceous (about 184 to 132 million years ago) accompanied by massive eruptions of basalt lava, as East Gondwana, comprising Antarctica, Madagascar, India, and Australia, began to separate from Africa . South America began to drift slowly westward from Africa as the South Atlantic Ocean opened, beginning about 130 Mya during the Early Cretaceous, and resulting in open marine conditions by 110 Mya . East Gondwana then began to separate about 120 Mya when India began to move northward . </P> <P> The Madagascar block, and a narrow remnant microcontinent presently occupied by the Seychelles Islands, were broken off India; elements of this breakup nearly coincide with the Cretaceous--Paleogene extinction event . The India--Madagascar--Seychelles separations appear to coincide with the eruption of the Deccan basalts, whose eruption site may survive as the Réunion hotspot . </P>

When did south america break away from africa