[ad_1]
An international team of geoscientists created the first continuous solid plate model with evolving plate boundaries ranging from a billion years ago to the present day.
Plate tectonics is a unifying theory of modern geology, explicitly linking evolution and the processes that link the Earth’s mantle, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere.
Tectonic forces control the rates of uplift and erosion where continents meet or separate and modulate the flow of energy between the oceans, lithosphere and mantle as continental configurations change.
Changing plate tectonic patterns also determine changes in how species are distributed across different land masses and infer chemical flux rates between the Earth’s surface and the deep interior.
Full-plate models released over the past decade collectively span the last billion years. However, each of these models covers different time periods or regions of the world and each model is based on different assumptions and assumptions, and emphasizes subsets of geological data.
Thus, although continental movements and the evolution of plate boundaries have been categorized in one way or another over the past billion years, there is no fully continuous pattern that defines tectonic history. of Earth for this period.
“Our planet is unique in that it hosts life,” said Professor Dietmar Müller, a researcher at the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney.
“But this is only possible because geological processes, like plate tectonics, provide a planetary survival system.”
“For the first time, a complete model of tectonics has been built, including all limits,” said Dr Michael Tetley, researcher at the University of Lyon.
“On a human scale, things move in centimeters per year, but as we can see from the animation, the continents have been everywhere in time.”
“A place like Antarctica, which today we think of as a cold and freezing, inhospitable place, was in fact once a fairly pleasant holiday destination on the equator.
Distribution of the Earth’s continental crust, ocean basins and plate boundaries in the plate model at present. Tan polygons are areas of continental lithosphere in the Neoproterozoic, blue polygons are areas of current continental lithosphere. Abbreviations: A – Amazonia; Ant – Antarctica; AUS – Australia; BP – Province of Borborema; CCT – Chinese Central Tianshan; Cu – Cuyania; CY – Chu Yili; K – Kalahari; KMT – Krygyz Middle Tianshan; KNT – Krygyz North Tianshan; KST – Krygyz South Tianshan; NB – Nigeria-Benin; NC – North China; P – Paranapanema; ANS – Arab Nubian Shield; Qa – Qaidam; Qi – Qilian; RDLP – Rio de la Plata; SC – South China; SM – Metacraton of the Sahara; T – Tarim; WAC – West African Craton. Image Credit: Merdith et al., doi: 10.1016 / j.earscirev.2020.103477.
“Planet Earth is incredibly dynamic, with a surface made up of constantly jostling plates in a unique way among known rocky planets,” said Dr Sabin Zahirovic, a researcher at the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney.
“These plates move at the speed of nail growth, but when a billion years is condensed into 40 seconds, a fascinating dance is revealed.
“The oceans open and close, the continents disperse and recombine periodically to form immense supercontinents.”
The team’s billion-year model will give scientists a better understanding of how the Earth’s interior convects, chemically mixes, and loses heat through seabed propagation and volcanism.
It will also help researchers understand how the climate has changed, how ocean currents have changed, and how nutrients flowed from the depths of the Earth to stimulate biological evolution.
“Put simply, this comprehensive model will help explain how our home, planet Earth, has become habitable for complex creatures. Life on Earth would not exist without plate tectonics, ”said Prof Müller.
“With this new model, we are closer to understanding how this beautiful blue planet became our cradle.”
The study is published in the journal Earth-Science Reviews.
_____
Andrew S. Merdith et al. 2021. Extension of full-plate tectonic models in deep time: relating the neoproterozoic and the phanerozoic. Earth-Science Reviews 214: 103477; doi: 10.1016 / j.earscirev.2020.103477
[ad_2]
Source link