Amasia is the working name given to the continent that will be produced when Asia and North America bump into each other. Scientists are a bit vague about when this will happen suggesting it could take place anywhere between 50 and 200 million years from now.
One of the people involved in a new Yale University study predicting the creation of the enlarged continent is Ross Nelson Mitchell. He is quoted by the New York Times (February 8, 2012) as saying: “The fusion of North and South America together will close the Caribbean Sea and meet Eurasia at the present-day North Pole.”
Mechanics of Plate Tectonics
The tectonic plates of the Earth, on which continents sit, are always moving on a drifting layer called the asthenosphere; this is made up of rock that is squishy enough to flow. But, it doesn’t flow in a way we would recognize, such as water does; it flows on a geologic timescale measured by a few meters a century.
Some plates move faster than others. The Indo-Australian plate is the Formula 1 of geology, moving at about 15 cm a year. About 70 million years ago it collided with the southern part of the Eurasian Plate. The impact of one continent slamming into another, even in slow motion, was enough to throw up the Himalayan Mountain range. The collision is still ongoing and the mountains are rising by about five millimetres a year.
Creation of Super-continents
The Yale study suggests that Australia is moving north and will drift into Asia somewhere between Japan and India. Africa will then close up behind Australia and this will mark the creation of another super-continent.
As the BBC reports (February 8, 2012), “The continents are last thought to have come together 300 million years ago into a super-continent called Pangaea.” Geologists have hypothesized that other super-continents have formed; Rodinia about one billion years ago, and Nuna about 800 million years before that.
Previously, researchers had thought the new super-continent would form in the mid-Atlantic region as Pangaea had or on the other side of the world in the current Pacific Ocean. The new study suggests the North Pole as a more likely meeting point.
Study of Magnetic Forces
According to Kerri Smith, writing in Nature, the Yale scientists analyzed “the magnetism of ancient rocks to work out their locations on the globe over time, and measured how the material under Earth’s crust, the mantle, moves the continents that float on its surface.” From this data they foresee the new super-continent forming over the Arctic.
Smith writes that Ross Mitchell and his colleagues “think that this is part of a pattern: Pangaea formed at about 90 degrees to the previous supercontinent, Rodinia, and Rodinia at about 90 degrees to Nuna…” This model is called orthoversion and seems to clear up a puzzle surrounding continental drift. It was thought to be random but now appears to follow a sequence.
Sources
- “America and Eurasia ‘to Meet at North Pole.’ ” Neil Bowdler, BBC News, February 8, 2012.
- “Next Super-continent Will Form in Arctic, Geologists Say.” Sindya N. Bhanoo, New York Times, February 8, 2012.
- “Super-continent Amasia to Take North Pole Position.” Kerri Smith, Nature, February 8, 2012.
Rupert Taylor - Rupert Taylor is the editor of a magazine that provides background to current events.
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