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Euramerica

Euramerica (also known as Laurussia, the Old Red Continent or the Old Red Sandstone Continent) was a minor supercontinent created in the Devonian as the result of a collision between the Laurentian, Baltica and Avalonia cratons (Caledonian orogeny).

Euramerica became a part of the major supercontinent Pangaea in the Permian. In the Jurassic, when Pangaea rifted into two continents, Gondwana and Laurasia, Euramerica was a part of Laurasia. In the Cretaceous, Laurasia split into the continents of North America and Eurasia. The Laurentian craton became a part of North America, while Baltica became a part of Eurasia.

A vast ocean covered the rest of the globe, and the land was comparatively arid. Global climate was relatively warm and dry, and there was less of an equator-to-pole temperature gradient than today. There were no glaciers until the Late Devonian, when ice began to cover parts of the South Polar region.

In the north, the formation of the continent of Euramerica continued from the Silurian. The northern branch of the Iapetus Ocean closed and the Late Caledonian (or Acadian) orogeny continued. The Euramerican continent, once called the “Old Red Continent” because of the color of Devonian-age rocks in Europe and North America, began to drift northward. Gondwana also drifted north. The formation of Euramerica and the closure of the oceans between Euramerica and Gondwana initiated the formation of Pangea, which continued into the early Mesozoic.