Amasia Supercontinent To Form Over Arctic, Yale Geologists Say

What lies ahead for planet Earth? In the next 50 million to 200 million years, geologists have predicted that the continents will smash together to create one big supercontinent that scientists call 'Amasia.' But a new computer model suggests that geologists may have to slightly shift their thinking.

Previously, researchers thought Amasia would form to look much like Pangea - North and South America will fuse together and merge with Asia, or similar formations will occur 180 degrees away on the other side of the world.

But the model, developed by Yale graduate students, suggests that Amasia will form over the Arctic.

"Our model says that with every supercontinent cycle the whole arrangement needs to be shifted 90 degrees," Yale geologist Ross Mitchell told NBC Cosmic Log. "So it's quite a shift - a tectonic shift."

Mitchell told The New York Times:

“The fusion of North and South America together will close the Caribbean Sea and meet Eurasia at the present-day North Pole. And Australia is moving north, and would probably snuggle to join Asia somewhere between India and Japan."

The video above shows the scientists' computer model of how the supercontinent is now expected to form.

Comments

[brw1970]

01:07 PM on 02/14/2012

If we cannot stop global warming, maybe we can at least stop plate tectonics......

[george6090]

03:05 PM on 02/13/2012

The Northern part of Africa with the Southern part of the USA, that should be real fun to see.

[ZenSufi]

02:44 PM on 02/12/2012

This is part of Obama's war against the continents.

[GrantS]

10:50 PM on 02/11/2012

Terrible video. A little more explanation needed.

[gerorem]

10:23 PM on 02/11/2012

You mean I have to wait 50 million years to see nations get closer?
I thought that was what the telegraph would do--make us one big happy family.

[Greybeard53]

01:39 PM on 02/11/2012

Old 80's original MTV song "I'm Turning Japanese", who'd have thought it would take 480 million years??

[KcajDam]

06:58 AM on 02/11/2012

La théorie de l'expansion terrestre est plus crédible que cette sottise ! Kc ;-\

[behavingbadly]

04:26 PM on 02/10/2012

I'm always amazed at the number of posters who use conservatism as an intellectual condom.

[gerorem]

10:11 PM on 02/11/2012

An IUD more likely. No facts stick or live.

[Mr Anonymous]

09:06 PM on 02/12/2012

Conservatives don't believe in birth control.

[phal4875]

12:46 PM on 02/13/2012

Or a heliocentric solar system.

[an seanchus mor]

10:19 AM on 02/10/2012

Good God, What do Australia and India think they're doing?

[Ngonyama]

10:37 AM on 02/10/2012

Squashing Indonesia between them, I suppose..

[an seanchus mor]

11:21 AM on 02/10/2012

oh the devils!

[gerorem]

10:12 PM on 02/11/2012

Wait. They can just wander around? Which one will say "there goes the neighborhood?"

[Bepragmatic]

08:04 AM on 02/10/2012

Anything that suggests that the world and living organisms have changed over a very long period of time is threatning to the world of the those who stick their heads in a hole in the ground and claim the earth was created 6000 years ago.

[Ngonyama]

10:35 AM on 02/10/2012

That is exactly why all the science haters are out in force here. They do not like to have to think. Especially when a little thinking reveals how narrow their minds are and how little justification there is for their arrogance.

They much prefer to tell God that he must have done it in 6000 years in utter blasphemy than to have to contend with a God of Rodinia and Amasia.

[gerorem]

10:15 PM on 02/11/2012

Well, the appropriate place for fossils IS in the ground.

[mystik1]

07:33 AM on 02/10/2012

I have to agree. I'm not against science that is useful to mankind by any means, but this is ridiculous in that it has no meaning to anyone here, anyone's family, or even the foreseeable future of the earth. It's just so far away that it has no significance, let alone if you believe the theory or not (and believe me...it is just a guess). If we are still here by then, science could be so far ahead of what it is now that it'll be mind-boggling...or the world as we know it could be "destroyed" by then, and mankind started over...or there could be no more people. It's just a waste of thought, resources, everything to even worry about that now.

[an seanchus mor]

10:20 AM on 02/10/2012

aaah, No!

[Ngonyama]

10:28 AM on 02/10/2012

I'm not sure the oil companies would agree. They rather depend on geological information.

But then you do not use any oil products, do you?

[SocietalSilence]

03:41 AM on 02/10/2012

The comments on this article are dismaying. It's absolutely pathetic what has happened to respect for science in our society; it's shunned when lay people's preconceived notions are challenged, and it's ridiculed when lay people fail to find value in its message.

[MekhongKurt]

03:08 PM on 02/10/2012

@SocietalScience, absolutely; agreed and faved.

If you want to get a little more depressed about it, read this article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/07/science-education-fordham-institute_n_1259445.html?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Daily%20Brief&utm_campaign=daily_brief

[scouse55]

03:12 AM on 02/10/2012

Frankly my dears, I couldn't give a damn!

As my 75 years, taken in contrast to the galactic scale of time, is in effect a mere few seconds, what is likely to occur a seconds, never mind hundreds of millions of years, after my earthly existence terminates, is of absolutely no concern to me.

I am sure the bods in labs who dream up this sort of rather esoteric data get their rocks off on it, but for the everyday guy on the street it's just another waste of space on the pages of tomorrows fish and chip wrappings.

Anyway, where's the guarantee the human race will, itself, even be around to feel the bump.

[SocietalSilence]

03:34 AM on 02/10/2012

Waste of space? This is probably more meaningful than any of the political crap that gets pages and pages of reporting.

If the article doesn't interest you, then no one is forcing you to read it, hence why we have a *science* section.

[scouse55]

03:51 AM on 02/10/2012

Did I say I was not interested? .....no I did not, I said I couldn't give a damn.

Obviously the matter must be of concern to you, to such a degree you attempt to ;put words in to my mouth.

I do believe the Huff allows one to be as interested in it', and allows comment on them s articles without the unnecessary criticism of what one writes, or did you not get the point in humour in my previous message.
If you wish to extend this into a debate on the science involved, at a more serious level, then go ahead, be my guest.

[MekhongKurt]

03:10 PM on 02/10/2012

@scouse55; understood. After all, you're likely quite near the end of the road so can already see your parking place without even donning your eyeglasses for near-sightedness.

[scouse55]

04:37 PM on 02/10/2012

Yes indeed, it's all downhill these days. Mind you with both parents surviving into their 90't, both were long term smokers, which I ain't, I have a target...110,

....... 2046 and counting.

[Damn Strange]

03:07 AM on 02/10/2012

They should call it 'Amnesia' because when this happens we won't even be a memory.

[tundraben]

09:44 PM on 02/09/2012

They cant get the weather forcast right for tomorrow, who knows what the earth looked like 200 million years ago....Where do i sign up for a job like that?
Speculation? OH just like oil speculaters setting our oil prices? And we let them?
No. we dont let them but they do set the price. Get rid of them and let the oil companies set their prices. That's how it used to be, in the meantime their not complaining.

[MekhongKurt]

03:11 PM on 02/10/2012

@tundraben, this room is for a discussion among adults. Yours is at the end of the hall in the pre-nursery area.

[phal4875]

12:50 PM on 02/13/2012

Tectonic plates are always moving. The "film" can be run in reverse to determine a lot of our geologic past.