Earth’s surface has evolved dynamically over centuries of years. It has led to a change in the borders and boundaries that we see today. But have you ever wondered how our planet might look after millions of years? Interestingly, an animation shared by nonprofit scientific association AGU (Advancing Earth and Spaces Science) reveals that Earth’s continents are likely to undergo a massive change in the next 250 million years.
The idea of a “supercontinent” was first shared in 1912 by a German Meteorologist named Alfred Wegener, per IFL Science.
Wegener proposed the idea that Earth’s plate tectonics dynamically changed to give a supercontinent, consisting of many continents put together. Though the event unfolded over millions of years, Wegener studied the change and named the supercontinent “Pangea.” In the animated clip, one can observe how the continents are expected to transform over the years. After approximately 250 million years, the Pangea is expected to be reformed drastically.
Oceanographer Mattias Green from Bangor University’s School of Ocean Sciences led a study that proposed the idea that ocean tides are highly responsible for the changes in the formation of the supercontinent. He shared his opinion in a press release, “Our simulations suggest that the tides are, at the moment, abnormally large. And that was our motivating question: If the tides were weak up until 200 million years ago, and they’ve since shot up and become very energetic over the past two million years, what will happen if we move millions of years into the future?”
The study states that the continents are placed on top of slabs of rock called tectonic plates. These eventually move slowly over a long span to form a supercontinent. This causes the planet’s ocean basins to open and create one unbroken mass of water. The plates are responsible for the formation of the shape of the continents as well as the water basins. While the earlier transformations took over 200 million years, the study suggests that over the next 50 million years, tides would come together and grow stronger to break the Asian continent.
In 100 million years, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean are expected to be joined by a new Pan-Asian ocean. Eventually, the other continents, too, will see a drift as the years go by. By 150 million years, it is expected that the supercontinent will begin to form with the land masses moving and by 250 years, a new supercontinent is presumed. Geophysicist Dietmar Müller from the University of Sydney in Australia added that these massive changes aren’t likely to make a difference for the current life on Earth given the period of 250 million years.
