Friday 3 April 2015

How Much Earth Has Changed In 200 Million Years?

Our planet has not always had the seven continents. In the distant geological past there was only one continent - Pangaea, which was divided about 200 million years ago.

Scientists have now reconstructed in detail the transformation of our planet's surface thanks to a new computer model.

On the attached video, you can see a simulation of the movement of Earth's tectonic plates, and each frame is a period of a million years.

"Tectonic plates are changing the speed and direction of movement in a relatively short period of time of about a million years," says Sabin Zahirović,
geo-dynamicist at the University of Sydney, who led the research.

Zahirović and his colleagues are planning to reconstruct the movement of plates before the breakup of Pangaea.

The paper describing this research was published in the journal "Earth and Planetary Science Letters".

4 comments:

  1. This was fabulous to watch and look forward to even more advanced ones from you.. Although aware that originally earth's land mass was all sort of grouped together and known as Pangea, I had always wanted to see how it drifted apart and how the plate faults came to be where they are today and here you presented it! -- and very well too. Thank you.

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    1. Hi Bluestar! Glad you like this visualization of plate tectonics since Pangea breakup. It has taken many years for our team to build these numerical models that document the evolution of our planet - and we are now at a stage where we can do some really exciting things, including learning more about the long-term ocean circulation, climate, biogeographic evolution, the formation of mountains and ocean basins and the role of mantle convection on resurfacing our planet. If you are interested, you can follow us on Facebook or Twitter (look up "EarthByte") and we will be happy to answer any questions you might have in the future. Thanks for your support! :-) Cheers, Sabin Zahirovic

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