In the course of the earth’s history the land masses migrated, collided and separated again: The plate tectonics has changed the face of our planet and this will continue to do so. But what might the earth look like in the distant future? According to a recent study, the continents will likely reunite into one large land mass in about 200 million years. The position of this supercontinent is rather questionable: It could be in the area of the North Pole or on the equator.
Today the land masses of the earth appear comparatively well distributed. But that was not always so. It is believed that the continents were once united into a large area of land called Pangea. This supercontinent then broke up about 200 million years ago and its parts drifted on the tectonic plates to their current positions. But there is no standstill – plate tectonics is still active.
Based on current movements, researchers have already developed forecasts of how certain areas of the earth’s crust will develop. However, this “fast forward” is always associated with an uncertainty factor. Because it seems possible that new geological processes such as the formation of new subduction zones will occur. But at least trends are emerging.
Two possible positions of a supercontinent
Geologists have long suspected that continental drift leads to supercontinents over very long periods of time, which then disintegrate and then form again. This is now also evident from the current study by the researchers led by Michael Way from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA. According to their geophysical simulations, the continents will converge again over the next 200 million years and eventually form a supercontinent again.
Obviously, it is difficult to say where this landmass will be located on our planet. Way and his colleagues assume two possible scenarios: The first could lead to the supercontinent “Amasia” in the far north in 200 million years. Only the Antarctic remains isolated at the South Pole, all other land masses are drifting north and merging there. In the second possible development process, the tectonic plates tend to move in an east-west direction and in around 250 million years will form a supercontinent called “aurica” from almost all of today’s land masses in the equatorial region of the earth. Other geologists have already forecast a similar agglomeration of land masses at the equator.
Source: Earth Institute at Columbia University, American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting 2020; abstract