Our planet has not always had the seven continents. In the distant geological past there was only one continent - Pangaea, which was divided about 200 million years ago.
Scientists have now reconstructed in detail the transformation of our planet's surface thanks to a new computer model.
On the attached video, you can see a simulation of the movement of Earth's tectonic plates, and each frame is a period of a million years.
"Tectonic plates are changing the speed and direction of movement in a relatively short period of time of about a million years," says Sabin Zahirović, geo-dynamicist at the University of Sydney, who led the research.
Zahirović and his colleagues are planning to reconstruct the movement of plates before the breakup of Pangaea.
The paper describing this research was published in the journal "Earth and Planetary Science Letters".