- Pixabay
VIVA – New research has warned that over the next 200 to 300 million years, the Pacific Ocean is predicted to disappear. North and South America will join ASIA and form Amasia, the world's next supercontinent.
In a new study, scientists from New Curtin University used a supercomputer to simulate how the next supercontinent would form.
They found that the planet had cooled for billions of years, decreasing the thickness and strength of the plates beneath the oceans over time.
Because of this phenomenon, it is difficult for the next supercontinent to converge by closing off young oceans such as the Atlantic or Indian Oceans.
Lead author Chuan Huang of Curtin's Earth Dynamics Research Group and the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences said the discovery provides insight into what will happen to Earth in the next 200 million years.
Peneliti memperingatkan Samudra Pasifik akan menghilang saat superbenua terbentu
- University of Curtin
"Over the past two billion years, Earth's continents have collided together to form supercontinents every 600 million years that’s known as the supercontinent cycle. It means that the current continents will reunite within a few hundred million years," Chuan Huang remarked.
The resulting new supercontinent has been given the name Amasia because some believe that the Pacific Ocean will close (as opposed to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans) when America collides with Asia.
Although its name is not seen in the portmanteau, Australia also has the potential to play a role in the formation of Amasia, colliding with Asia and then connecting America and Asia after the Pacific Ocean closed.
"By simulating how Earth's plate tectonics are expected to evolve using a supercomputer, we were able to show that in less than 300 million years, it is very likely that the Pacific Ocean will close, allowing the formation of Amasia, dismantling several previous scientific theories," Chuan Huang explained.
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