The continents are moving. When will they collide?

Alfred Wegener, a meteorologist, noticed striking similarities between the coasts of Africa and South America at the beginning of the 20th century. He came up with a controversial new theory as a result of these observations: It's possible that many other continents were once connected by a vast landmass. The popular belief that Earth's continents had remained stable for millennia was directly contradicted by Wegener's Theory of Continental Drift. It took his supporters almost 50 years to persuade the larger scientific community of their theory. However, today, we realize something much seriously thrilling — Pangea was unquestionably the most recent in a long genealogy of supercontinents, and it won't be the last. Our current theory of plate tectonics, which asserts that the Earth's crust is composed of vast, jagged plates that shift over a layer of partially molten rock known as the mantle, was established by Continental Drift. Even though these plates only move 2.5 to 10 centimeters per year, the surface of the planet is shaped by these small movements. Therefore, we need to know where these plates are going in order to predict when a new supercontinent will form. One strategy is to examine their previous movements. By measuring changes in the Earth's magnetic field, geologists can determine where continents have been over time. Whenever liquid stone cools, its attractive minerals are "frozen" at a particular moment. Thus, we can determine the latitude at which a rock was situated during cooling by calculating its magnetic field's direction and intensity. However, this method has significant drawbacks. For one thing, the longitude of a rock's plate cannot be determined from its magnetic field, and the measurement of its latitude can be either north or south. Worse yet, when the rock is reheated, such as during continental collisions or volcanic activity, this magnetic data is erased. Therefore, geologists must employ alternative strategies to retrace the positions of the continents. Identifying previously connected regions can be made easier by dating local fossils and comparing them to the global fossil record. The equivalent is valid for breaks and different distortions in the World's outside, which can in some cases be followed across plates. Utilizing these devices, researchers have sorted out a moderately solid history of plate developments, and their exploration uncovered an example crossing countless years. The Wilson Cycle, which is now known as a prediction, explains how continents split up and reassemble. Additionally, it predicts that the next supercontinent will emerge in 50 to 250 million years. We don't know much about how that landmass will look. It could be a brand-new Pangea that emerges from the Atlantic's closing. Or on the other hand it could result from the development of another Container Asian sea. However, despite the fact that its form and size remain a mystery, we are aware that these modifications will have an impact far beyond our national borders. Previously, impacting plates have created major ecological disturbances. Large landmasses were exposed to weathering when the Rodinia supercontinent broke up about 750 million years ago. The planet entered a time period known as Snowball Earth as a result of this newly exposed rock absorbing additional rainfall carbon dioxide. This ice had to be melted for another 4 to 6 million years after volcanic activity released enough CO2 to do so. In the meantime, things are more likely to get hotter when the next supercontinent comes together. Cracks in the crust of the Earth could grow as a result of plate tectonics and continental collisions, potentially releasing significant quantities of carbon and methane into the atmosphere. The planet would quickly get hotter as a result of this influx of greenhouse gases, which could lead to a mass extinction. Even if we were able to plug these cracks, the resulting pressure would only cause additional cracks because of their size. Luckily, we have no less than 50 million years to concoct an answer here, and we could as of now be onto something. Recent tests in Iceland showed that basalt could store carbon and quickly turn these gases into stone. As a result, it's possible that a global network of pipes could direct gases that were vented into basalt outcrops, reducing some of our current emissions and safeguarding our super continental future.

Click Here to learn how AI could change history