A new supercomputer simulation of Earth’s ever-drifting plates tectonics shows that the Pacific Ocean’s days have come to an end.
The good news is: The bad news is that the oldest ocean on our planet still has 300 million years to go. If it is lucky, the Pacific might celebrate its billionth anniversary before eventually disappearing from existence.
Curtin University in Australia believes that the ocean may be swallowed by humans before then.
The Pacific will no longer look like the vast expanses of blue that it does today in its final years. Each year, the ocean shrinks by a few centimeters as it has since it was a superocean around the last supercontinent, Pangea.
Many subduction zones can be found in this ancient ocean. These are places where tectonic plates meet and ride on top of each other. These sites are also known as the “Ring of Fire” in the Pacific. They function almost like ocean floor bath tub drains.
Every year, a few centimeters from the Pacific plate slip under the Eurasian and Indo-Australian plates, collapsing distance between North America and Asia.
All scientists are not on the same pageThere are many simulations that show the Pacific Ocean as doomed.
Some studies have suggested that the Atlantic Ocean might shrink, as it expands today, creating a supercontinent surrounded with a super Pacific Ocean. However, Curtin University researchers disagree.
Instead, a second Pangaea like continent (aka Pangaea Proxima) forming, They believe the world is heading towards aSupercontinent where North America and Asia collide, known as Amasia.
Poor Australia is left out of this “cute couple” name. However, 4D geodynamic models show that the Southern Hemisphere continent appears to play an important part in filling up the Pacific.
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Researchers in Australia have recently developed simulations that are based upon realistic parameters of the plate and mantle from the present and past. These parameters were used by a supercomputer to predict what the future would look like.
“Over the past two million years, Earth’s continentals have collided to form a supercontinent every 600,000,000 years, a process known as the supercontinent circle.” SaysChuan Huang, Earth scientist and principal author, is also a lead author.
“By using a supercomputer to simulate the Earth’s tectonic plate evolution, we were able show that it will be the Pacific Ocean that closes in less that 300 million years. This allows for the formation Amasia and discredits some other scientific theories.
Contrary to Other supercontinent simulationsThis new one implies that Amasia will destroy the Pacific Ocean and not the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.
Current models show that Amasia is when the Pacific closes as a result of the weakening the ocean’s crust.
Amasia will change the face of the Earth as we know it. It is predicted that the sea level will drop and that the interior of the supercontinent, which has a large area, will be extremely dry with high daily temperatures. SaysGeoscientist Zheng Xiang Li.
This is only the latest in a long line of supercontinent simulations that have attempted to predict the future of our planet.
While it’s unlikely that another model will resolve the issue, it doesn’t mean that this model is the only one capable of predicting the end of the Pacific.
Imagine a supercontinent that is called NovopangaeaThe Americas and Antarctica collide before they crash into Eurasia or Africa. The Pacific is cut off in a different manner, but the results are similar.
A second supercontinental scenario, called AuricaBoth the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are now closed for good and a new ocean basin is created in their place.
No matter what the outcome may be, one thing is certain: Earth and its oceans won’t be the same.
The study was published by the National Science Review.
