Gondwana (formerly called Gondwanaland), shown in yellow, comprised most of the land masses in today's southern hemisphere, including Antarctica, South America, Africa, Madagascar, Australia-New Guinea, and New Zealand, as well as Arabia and the Indian subcontinent, which are in the Northern Hemisphere. The name is derived from the Gondwana region of central northern India (from Sanskrit gondavana 'forest of Gond'). At 550 million years ago, preceding the Cambrian Laurentia was moving away from Gondwana; Laurentia included what is now a large portion of North America. |