Revealed: The Earth can have four different ways to appear when the next supercontinent is formed

Mattias Green, Hannah Sophia Davies and Joao C. Duarte writing for The Conversation

The outer layer of the Earth, the solid crust on which we walk, is composed of broken pieces, much like the shell of a broken egg. These pieces, the tectonic plates, move around the planet at a speed of a few centimeters per year. From time to time, they come together and combine to form a supercontinent that remains a few hundred million years before they separate. The plates disperse or scatter and move away from each other, until they regain their place after 400 to 600 million years.

The last supercontinent, Pangea, was formed about 310 million years ago and began to separate about 180 million years ago. It has been suggested that the next supercontinent will form in 200 to 250 million years. So we are about halfway through the dispersed phase of the current supercontinent cycle. The question is how will the next supercontinent be formed and why?

There are four basic scenarios for the formation of the next supercontinent: Novopangea, Pangea Ultima, Aurica and Amasia. The way in which each is formed depends on different scenarios, but ultimately depends on the separation of Pangea and how continents are still moving today.

The outbreak of Pangea led to the formation of the Atlantic Ocean, which is opening and expanding today. As a result, the Pacific Ocean is closing and shrinking. The Pacific is home to a ring of subduction zones around its periphery (the "fire circle"), where the ocean floor is lowered or subducted beneath continental plates and inside the Earth. There, the old ocean floor is recycled and can sink into volcanic plumes. The Atlantic, on the other hand, has a large oceanic ridge producing a new oceanic plate, but contains only two subduction zones: the Lesser Antilles arc in the Caribbean and the Scotia Arc between South America and Antarctica.

1. Novopangea

If we badume that the current conditions persist, so that the Atlantic continues to open and the Pacific continues to close, we have a scenario where the next supercontinent is formed at the antipodes of Pangea. The Americas would collide with Antarctica drifting north, and then into Africa-Eurasia already colliding. The supercontinent that would then be called Novopangea or Novopangaea.