Pangea or the giant landmass that united the seven continents into one supercontinent during Earth's prehistoric times, split apart about 200 million years ago. In an interesting twist of terrestrial evolution, it turns out that we are about 200 million years away from the formation of a new supercontinent similar to Pangea.
Quoted from Popular Mechanics, there are four prevailing versions of how this supercontinent will develop, according to a research article published in Geological Magazine in 2018.
1. Novopangea
In the first scenario, we assume the Atlantic Ocean continues to open, while the Pacific Ocean continues to close. The Pacific Ocean, for its part, is full of subduction zones, or where the oceanic plate sinks into the continental plate and then into the Earth's mantle. This is also the reason why 80% of major earthquakes occur around the edge of the Pacific Ocean, otherwise known as the "Ring of Fire."
As a result of this tectonic activity, the Americas continued to separate from Europe and Africa, meaning they eventually crashed into Antarctica to the north, and finally into Africa, Europe, and Asia, which had been crammed together. Meanwhile, Australia will move closer to East Asia. The result was one large mega-continent called "Novopangea" or Greco-Latin for "New Pangea".
2. Pangea Proxima
In the "Pangea Proxima" or "Next Pangea" scenario, the Atlantic and Indian Oceans continue to expand until a new subduction zone pulls the continents back together, resulting in collisions between Eurasia and the other continents. To visualize the end result, imagine a somewhat ring-shaped landmass with a small ocean basin in the center.
3. Supercontinent Aurica
The Pacific and Atlantic Oceans are really old, 200 million and 180 million years old, respectively. So, what if both are closed? In this case, the supercontinent "Aurica" (Australia and America) will be born.
"We assumed there were only two oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific. But on Earth, you have more options, like the Indian Ocean," said João C. Duarte, assistant professor of tectonics at Portugal's University of Lisbon, who is also the creator of the Aurica hypothesis.
"It's possible to close the Atlantic and the Pacific, because both of them are very old right now. What you need is a third ocean and it's already there, the Indian Ocean, the youngest of the bunch, 'only' about 140 million years old," Duarte said. .
According to this scenario, if in the future the Indian Ocean opened, and the Pacific and Atlantic closed, the seven continents would become one large continent called Aurica around the equator.
4. Supercontinent Amasia
The final scenario is the "Amasia" (America and Asia) theory, which speculates that the Atlantic and Pacific will remain open, while the Arctic Ocean is closed. In this case, all continents except Antarctica will start moving north and settle near the North Pole.
"We're going to end up with just a big ocean around the Arctic and Antarctica on the other side," Duarte said.
In research published in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems in July 2021, researchers used 3D global climate models to simulate how the Aurica and Amasia land settings would impact our climate.
If the Amasia scenario trumps the other scenarios, and all land is located around the North and South Poles, the lack of land in between will disrupt the ocean conveyor belt, the constantly moving deep ocean circulation system that carries heat from the equator to the poles. This keeps the poles not only colder, but also covered in ice all year round.
"All that ice will reflect heat into space," said Michael Way, a physicist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, who spearheaded the July 2021 study.
Aurica, on the other hand, might turn out to be a surfer's paradise. This supercontinent will be near the equator, so it will probably be a little warmer, and maybe drier than Earth is right now," Duarte said.
Of the four scenarios mentioned above, Duarte believes Aurica is the most likely supercontinent scenario, and Amasia the least likely.