The World’s Next Supercontinent, Amasya Amazing Research!

The World’s Next Supercontinent, Amasya

 

New research has found that the world’s next supercontinent, Amasia, is likely to form when the Pacific Ocean closes in 200 to 300 million years.

A research team led by Curtin University has used a supercomputer to simulate how a supercontinent formed. They discovered that the thickness and strength of the plates beneath the oceans decreases over time because the Earth has been cooling for billions of years, making it harder for the next big continent to reassemble by shutting off “young” oceans like the Atlantic or the Indian Oceans. The study was recently published in the National Science Review .

According to lead author Dr. Chuan Huang of the Earth Dynamics Research Group at Curtin and the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences says the new findings are significant and provide a glimpse into what will happen to Earth over the next 200 million years.

“For the past 2 billion years, every 600 million years, Earth’s continents have collided into a supercontinent known as the supercontinent cycle. This means that the current continents will meet again within a few hundred million years,” said Dr. Huang

“The resulting new supercontinent has already been dubbed Amasya because some believe that the Pacific Ocean (as opposed to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans) will close when America collides with Asia. Australia is also expected to play a role in this major event first when Earth collided with Asia and then joined America and Asia once the Pacific closed.

“By simulating how Earth’s tectonic plates evolved with a supercomputer, we were able to show that in less than 300 million years, the Pacific Ocean is likely to close, allowing for the formation of Amasia, debunking some previous scientific theories .”

The Pacific Ocean is what remains of the giant Panthalassa, which began to form 700 million years ago as the former supercontinent began to break up. It is the oldest ocean we have on Earth and has shrunk from its maximum size since the time of the dinosaurs. It is currently shrinking by a few centimeters a year. The Pacific Ocean, whose current extent is about 10,000 kilometers, is expected to take two hundred and three hundred million years to close.

Control of the entire world by a single continental mass would dramatically alter Earth’s ecosystem, according to co-author John Curtin Distinguished Professor Zheng-Xiang Li, also of the Curtin School of Earth and Planetary Sciences

“Earth as we know it will be very different when Amasia forms. Sea levels are projected to be lower, and the supercontinent’s vast interior will be extremely dry as daytime temperatures rise.

“Earth currently consists of seven continents with very different human ecosystems and cultures, so it would be great to think about what the world might look like in 200 to 300 million years.

Reference: “Will Earth’s Next Supercontinent Assemble by Closing the Pacific Ocean?” By Chuan Huang, Zheng-Xiang Li and Nan Zhang, September 28, 2022 Available here. National Science Review .

The research was co-authored by researchers from the Curtin School of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Peking University in China.

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