At least that’s what a new study by Curtin University scientists published last week suggests. It defines the medium-term geological future of our planet.

Over the past two billion years, Earth’s continents have collided every 600 million years to form a supercontinent known as the supercontinent cycle. This means that the current continents must come together again after a few hundred million years.
– said the lead author of the Chuan Hung study.

To create the time frame, the researchers used 4D geodynamic modeling of Earth’s tectonic plates, determined to find out why previous supercontinents formed in completely different ways.

Of these methods, introversion It is one of the two main patterns and occurs when continents close over an inland ocean that formed when the previous supercontinent broke up. At the opposite end – extraversionwhen the continents closed over the outer, former superocean.

If this stony piece of history can be clarified, researchers can better predict the next intercontinental merger.

Possible future of planet earth

The researchers found that the strength of the oceanic lithosphere determined what types of mergers occurred, and concluded that extroversion would be responsible for the next supercontinent. In this case, the former super-ocean is the Pacific Ocean. Last time it was the Panthalassa superocean surrounding the previous supercontinent, Pangea.

The new supercontinent formed was already called Amazia, as some believed that the Pacific Ocean (as opposed to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans) would close when America collided with Asia. Australia is also expected to play a role in this important event on Earth, first colliding with Asia, then connecting the Americas and Asia after the Pacific Ocean closed.
said Huang.

Regardless, for now this is just one of many hypotheses for continental drift, including the Pangea Proxima model, suggesting that the previously mentioned Atlantic and Indian oceans will close instead.