Pangea Ultima

In a world that has evolved since the supercontinent Pangea, we may be heading for another supercontinent called Pangea Ultima. Plate tectonics have created the spatial arrangement of our continents and will continue to do so over millions of years. This may be hard to believe, but the temporal scale for this movement is so large that we will not see any change in our lifetimes. It is amazing to think that we were all one continent, now separate and with our own separate cultures. What will it be like when Earth has only one continent again? Will there even be people living on Earth 250 million years from now? Learn more!

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast06oct_1/ 

2 thoughts on “Pangea Ultima

  1. I found this website to be particularly interesting because I always hear about how the Earth used to be in the form of what was called Pangea, but I had never heard anything about predictions for the future shape of the Earth. It is fascinating to learn that scientists have hypothesized the different directions the continents will move to form Pangea Ultima in 250 million years. Scientists believe that the Mediterranean Sea is the remnant of a large ocean that has closed over the past 100 million years, and speculate that it is going to continue to close as Africa moves upwards to smash into Europe. They also predict that because Australia currently is moving slowly northwards and colliding with Southeast Asian island, the continent will eventually make its way northward to collide with Asia. It’s really interesting that scientists can use what they know of plate tectonic processes to predict how the Earth may look many millions of years into the future.

  2. This is a very interesting website as a look into a possible future for the Earth. Thinking about the earth as being one continent in the past was difficult enough, but now that that’s where it seems we are headed again is particularly difficult to wrap my head around. This website definitely is a great site to learn more about what it might be like on Earth in the far future. Although plates are moving at such a slow rate, thinking that the plates are moving towards something, another “pangea” so to speak, is really cool and interesting to read, learn, and think further about.

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