Maximum folks now settle for the concept all of Earth’s continents had been as soon as a part of a single, enormous land mass. That used to ben’t the case within the early 9teen-tens, when the geologist Alfred Wegener (1880–1930) first publicized his theory of now not simply the tremendouscontinent Pangea, but additionally of the phenomenon of continental drift that led to it to damage aside into the sequence of shapes everyone knows from eleganceroom global maps. However as humorously defined in the Map Men video above, Wegener didn’t reside to look those concepts convince the sector. Handiest after his loss of life did other scientists figure out simply how the geological churning underneath the planet’s surface led to the continents to glide aside within the first position.
With that information in position, Pangea now not gave the impression of the crackpot perception it had when Wegener initially professionalposed it. Much less vastly appreciated, even nowadays, is the determination that, because the Map Males put it, “Pangea, a ways from being the original tremendouscontinent, used to be actually the 11th to have shaped in Earth’s history.”
It kind of feels that the continents were cyclically smashing aside and coming together once more, with out a signal of the method preventping. When, then, can we subsequent in finding ourselves again on a perfectcontinent? Consistent withhaps in 250 million years or so, according to the “Novopangea” model defined within the video, which has the Pacific ocean closing up as Australia slots into East Asia and North America whilst Antarctica drifts north.
Other models additionally exist, including Aurica, “the place Eurasia splits in part, and each the Pacific and Atlantic oceans shut up”; Pangea Ultima, “the place Britain will get closer to America”; and Amasia, “the place the entire continents congregate across the North Pole, apart from Antarctica” (whose glide patterns make it look like “the laziest continent”). At this sort of time scale, small adjustments within the fundamental assumptions can lead to very different-looking tremendouscontinents certainly, now not that any folks can be round to look how the following Pangea actually takes form. Neverthemuch less, on this age when we will exhaustingly move per week without encountering predictions of humanity’s imminent extinction, it’s refreshing to discover a subject that shall we us even consider appearanceing a quarter-billion years down the street.
Related Content:
A Billion Years of Tectonic-Plate Transferment in 40 Seconds: A Fast Glimpse of How Our Global Took Form
The Plate Tectonic Evolution of the Earth Over 500 Million Years: Animated Video Takes You from Pangea, to 250 Million Years within the Long run
Map Displaying The place Lately’s Countries Would Be Located on Pangea
Pangea to the Provide to the Long run: Watch Animations Displaying 500 Million Years of Continental Glide
Paper Animation Tells Curious Story of How a Meteorologist Theorized Pangaea & Continental Glide (1910)
A Internet Web page That We could You In finding Your House Cope with on Pangea
Primarily based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and extensivecasts on towns, language, and culture. His initiatives come with the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the ebook The Statemuch less Town: a Stroll thru Twenty first-Century Los Angeles. Follow him at the social webpaintings formerly referred to as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
