Pacific Ocean Shrinking: Scientists Predict Formation Of A New Supercontinent

Scientists from Curtin University in Australia and Peking University in China have used advanced supercomputing models to predict that a new supercontinent may emerge within the next 200 to 300 million years. As the Pacific Ocean gradually shrinks and eventually closes, Earth's tectonic plates are set to converge, potentially creating a massive landmass that will reshape the planet's geography. 

These groundbreaking findings were published in the journal National Science Review.

"Our new findings are significant and provide insights into what would happen to Earth in the next 200 million years," said Dr Chuan Huang, a researcher in the Earth Dynamics Research Group and the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Curtin University and the Key Laboratory of Orogenic Belts and Crustal Evolution at Peking University.

"Over the past two billion years, Earth's continents have collided together to form a supercontinent every 600 million years, known as the supercontinent cycle."

"This means that the current continents are due to come together again in a couple of hundred of million years' time."

The resulting new supercontinent has already been named Amasia because some believe that the Pacific Ocean will close - as opposed to the Atlantic and Indian oceans - when America collides with Asia.

Australia is also expected to play a role in this important Earth event, first colliding with Asia and then connecting America and Asia once the Pacific Ocean closes.

"By simulating how the Earth's tectonic plates are expected to evolve using a supercomputer, we were able to show that in less than 300 million years' time it is likely to be the Pacific Ocean that will close, allowing for the formation of Amasia, debunking some previous scientific theories," Dr. Huang said.

The Pacific Ocean is what is left of the Panthalassa superocean that started to form 700 million years ago when the previous supercontinent started to break apart.

It is the oldest ocean we have on Earth, and it started shrinking from its maximum size since the dinosaur time.