At the same time, South America shifted upward to the north, pulling apart from Antarctica. Smaller changes could be seen at this time as well, including the widening of the Gulf of California, the formation of the Alps, and fissures and rifts in the east, bringing Japan and the sea of Japan. Zhao, G., Cawood, P. A., Wilde, S. A. & Sun, M. Review of global 2.1–1.8 Ga orogens: implications for a pre-Rodinia supercontinent. Earth Sci. Rev. 59, 125–162 (2002). Mitchell, R. N., Kirscher, U., Kunzmann, M., Liu, Y. & Cox, G. M. Gulf of Nuna: Astrochronologic correlation of a Mesoproterozoic oceanic euxinic event. Geology 49, 25–29 (2021). Nearly 300 million years ago, the geography of the Earth was drastically different than it is today. This time period, between 280 million and 230 million years before present, was known as the late Paleozoic to early Mesozoic Era, and it was during these periods that Earth consisted of one collective ocean, called Panthalassa, and one single land mass or supercontinent known as Pangea. This name stems from the Greek word ‘pan’ meaning all or whole, and Gaia which refers to Mother Earth.

Wu, H., Zhang, S., Li, Z.-X., Li, H. & Dong, J. New paleomagnetic results from the Yangzhuang Formation of the Jixian System, North China, and tectonic implications. Chin. Sci. Bull. 50, 1483–1489 (2005). Mitchell, R. N., Hoffman, P. F. & Evans, D. A. D. Coronation loop resurrected: Oscillatory apparent polar wander of Orosirian (2.05–1.8 Ga) paleomagnetic poles from Slave craton. Precambrian Res. 179, 121–134 (2010). Berner, R. A. Phanerozoic atmospheric oxygen: New results using the GEOCARBSULF model. Am. J. Sci. 309, 603–606 (2009). Geologists know that supercontinents disperse and assemble in cycles: we're halfway through one now. So, what kind of supercontinent might lie in Earth's future? How will the landmasses as we know them rearrange over the very long-term? It turns out that there are at least four different trajectories that could lie ahead. And they show that Earth's living beings will one day reside on a very different planet, which looks more like an alien world. Mitchell, R. N., Raub, T. D., Silva, S. C. & Kirschvink, J. L. Was the Cambrian explosion both an effect and an artifact of true polar wander? Am. J. Sci. 315, 945–957 (2015).

Curriculum

Mitchell, R. N. et al. Hit or miss: Glacial incisions of snowball Earth. Terra Nova 31, 381–389 (2019). a b Rogers, J.J.W.; Santosh, M. (2004), Continents and Supercontinents, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.146, ISBN 978-0-19-516589-0 Torsvik, T. H., Burke, K., Steinberger, B., Webb, S. J. & Ashwal, L. D. Diamonds sampled by plumes from the core–mantle boundary. Nature 466, 352–355 (2010). Merdith, A. S. et al. A full-plate global reconstruction of the Neoproterozoic. Gondwana Res. 50, 84–134 (2017). But it wasn't straightforward. "What we were nervous about is it's an incredibly blue-sky topic. It's not in the same kind of vein as a regular scientific paper," says Davies. "We wanted to say, 'Okay, we understand this much about plate tectonics after 40 years or 50 years. And we understand this much about mantle dynamics, and all of the other components of the system. How far can we take that knowledge into the future?'"

Dixon, Dougal; Benton, M J; Kingsley, Ayala; Baker, Julian (2001). Atlas of Life on Earth. New York: Barnes & Noble Books. p.215. ISBN 9780760719572. By the Early Permian, the Cimmerian plate split from Gondwana and headed towards Laurasia, thus closing the Paleo-Tethys Ocean, but forming a new ocean, the Tethys Ocean, in its southern end. Most of the landmasses were all in one. By the Triassic Period, Pangaea rotated a little, and the Cimmerian plate was still travelling across the shrinking Paleo-Tethys until the Middle Jurassic. By the late Triassic, the Paleo-Tethys had closed from west to east, creating the Cimmerian Orogeny. Pangaea, which looked like a C, with the new Tethys Ocean inside the C, had rifted by the Middle Jurassic, and its deformation is explained below. [39] Paleogeography of Earth in the late Cambrian, around 490 Ma Fu, R. R., Kent, D. V., Hemming, S. R., Gutierrez, P. & Creveling, J. R. Testing the occurrence of Late Jurassic true polar wander using the La Negra volcanics of northern Chile. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 529, 115835 (2020).Evans, D. A. D., Veselovsky, R. V., Petrov, P. Y., Shatsillo, A. V. & Pavlov, V. E. Paleomagnetism of Mesoproterozoic margins of the Anabar Shield: A hypothesized billion-year partnership of Siberia and northern Laurentia. Precambrian Res. 281, 639–655 (2016). Su, W. & Dziewonski, A. M. Predominance of long-wavelength heterogeneity in the mantle. Nature 352, 121–126 (1991).

Pisarevsky, S. A., Elming, S.-A., Pesonen, L. J. & Li, Z.-X. Mesoproterozoic paleogeography: Supercontinent and beyond. Precambrian Res. 244, 207–225 (2014). Doucet, L. S. et al. Distinct formation history for deep-mantle domains reflected in geochemical differences. Nat. Geosci. 13, 511–515 (2020). Fixed an issue related to the language/currency selector on footer (on IE the options are white not visible) Enroll in the free online Cousera course " Our Earth: Its Climate, History, and Processes" offered by the University of Manchester in the U.K.

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Yoshida and Santos created additional geological models to predict mantle convection and continental movement patterns 250 million years in the future. These models suggest that over millions of years, the Pacific Ocean will close as Australia, North America, Africa, and Eurasia come together in the Northern Hemisphere. Eventually, these continents will merge, forming a supercontinent called "Amasia." The two remaining continents, Antarctica and South America, are predicted to remain relatively immobile and separate from the new supercontinent. Williams, H., Hoffman, P. F., Lewry, J. F., Monger, J. W. H. & Rivers, T. Anatomy of North Ame Spencer, C. J., Hawkesworth, C., Cawood, P. A. & Dhiume, B. Not all supercontinents are created equal: Gondwana-Rodinia case study. Geology 41, 795–798 (2013). Li, Z.-X., Evans, D. A. D. & Zhang, S. A 90 degrees spin on Rodinia: possible causal links between the Neoproterozoic supercontinent, superplume, true polar wander and low-latitude glaciation. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 220, 409–421 (2004). This led to four scenarios. As well as modelling a more detailed picture of Aurica, they explored three other possibilities, each projecting ahead roughly 200-250 million years from now.

Liu, C., Knoll, A. H. & Hazen, R. M. Geochemical and mineralogical evidence that Rodinian assembly was unique. Nat. Commun. 8, 1950 (2017). van der Voo, R. Paleomagnetism of the Atlantic, Tethys, and Iapetus Oceans (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993).

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Nance, R. Damian; Murphy, J. Brendan (2019). "Supercontinents and the case for Pannotia". Geological Society, London, Special Publications. 470 (1): 65–86. Bibcode: 2019GSLSP.470...65N. doi: 10.1144/SP470.5. S2CID 134018369. Korenaga, J. Crustal evolution and mantle dynamics through Earth history. Philos. Trans. A 376, 20170408 (2018). The Variscan orogeny raised the Central Pangaean Mountains, which were comparable to the modern Himalayas in scale. With Pangaea now stretching from the South Pole across the equator and well into the Northern Hemisphere, an intense megamonsoon climate was established, except for a perpetually wet zone immediately around the central mountains. [37] Formation of Laurasia Conrad, C. P., Steinberger, B. & Torsvik, T. H. Stability of active mantle upwelling revealed by net characteristics of plate tectonics. Nature 498, 479–482 (2013). Shows how plate tectonic motions during the past 250 Myr have been tightly coupled with degree 1 and degree 2 mantle flow, owing to basal tractions being nearly as strong as slab-pull forces. The formation of the continents by the separation of Pangaea due to continental drift. (Image credit: Dimitrios Karamitros via Getty Images)