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Future Geography: Continents & Mountains Plate Tectonics May Create

EnolaGaia

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In case you're given to worrying about situations at least 200 million years in the future ...

Geologists seem confident our current continents will move so as to once again coalesce into a single supercontinent - so confident they've already named it (Amasia / Pangea Proxima).

Will There Ever Be Another Pangea?
Just before the dawn of the dinosaurs — roughly 251 million years ago — Earth's continents abutted one another, merging to form the supercontinent Pangea. That land mass, which straddled the equator like an ancient Pac-Man, eventually split into Gondwana in the south and Laurasia in the north.

From there, Gondwana and Laurasia separated into the seven continents that we know today. But the constant movement of Earth's tectonic plates raises a question: Will there ever be another supercontinent like Pangea?

The answer is yes. Pangea wasn't the first supercontinent to form during Earth's 4.5-billion-year geologic history, and it won't be the last. ...

"That's the one part of the debate that there isn't much debate over," Ross Mitchell, a geologist at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, told Live Science. "But what 'the next Pangea' will look like … that's where opinions diverge."

Geologists agree that there is a well-established, fairly regular cycle of supercontinent formation. It's happened three times in the past. The first one was Nuna (also called Columbia), which existed from about 1.8 billion to 1.3 billion years ago. Next came Rodinia, which dominated the planet between 1.2 billion and 750 million years ago. So, there's no reason to think that another supercontinent won't form in the future, Mitchell said.


According to Mitchell, a new supercontinent forms every 600 million years or so, but that cycle might be speeding up. This suggests that the next Pangea, dubbed Amasia (or Pangea Proxima) would form sooner than we expect. Mitchell thinks the cycle is speeding up because the Earth’s internal heat — hoarded in the planet's core since the time of its formation — is dissipating, meaning that convection is happening faster.

"Given that the heyday of Pangea was probably 300 million years ago, Amasia's would be 300 million years from now," Mitchell said. "But it could form as soon as 200 million years from now." ...

It's unclear what's in store for life on Earth when the next supercontinent forms. But, thanks to scientists like Mitchell and Green, we may at least know what our atlases should look like a few hundred million years from now.

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/63753-will-there-be-another-pangea.html
 
This is a strange blend of science and non-science. It is clearly calculated and predicted using scientific knowledge and by people who are in any normal sense of the word, "scientists".

However, the bedrock of science is the testable hypothesis. Here, they are predicting something that will happen "as soon as 200 million years from now". That's 100 times as long as the interval between the first Homo erectus, and ourselves, and pretty much the same interval as the one that separates us from the age of the dinosaurs.

It seems likely that there will be no humans or other intelligent species around in 200 million years, in which case there will be no one to test the hypothesis.

Therefore, in the usual sense of the word, it is no more "scientific" than a prophecy.

This is highly relevant to a Fortean forum, because Forteana is largely about things that may or may not be true although they may never be verified or falsified.
 
Well, it's something that can be falsified. Even though it's unlikely to be.
 
... Therefore, in the usual naive / carelessly colloquial sense of the word, it is no more "scientific" than a prophecy. ...

Fixed ... :evillaugh:

But seriously ...

'Science' is the approach and the method, not the conclusion. The future supercontinent hypothesis is every bit as 'scientific' as any other theory - including those currently accepted for having not yet been falsified.
 
Fixed ... :evillaugh:

But seriously ...

'Science' is the approach and the method, not the conclusion. The future supercontinent hypothesis is every bit as 'scientific' as any other theory - including those currently accepted for having not yet been falsified.

The crucial point is that there are no circumstances in which it could be falsified. Falsifiable hypotheses are central to the scientific method. The conclusion may be right or wrong, but no one can possibly ever know.

The article says, "...it could be as soon as 200 million years," which implies an acknowledged margin for error measured in millions of years. A 5% margin for error, for example, would be 10 million years, which is roughly 2.5 times as long as the period from early Australopithecus to today.

For a period of millions of years, starting from 200,000,000 years' time, will there be observers present who are aware of the prediction and are able to witness it happening?

Even if, for the sake of argument, an observer does not witness it happening, does that mean that the prediction is wrong, or that the margin for error is so great that it would take a number of generations equivalent to far longer than the history of humanity (measured to today) to provide continuous observation?

Therefore I'm suggesting it is not a falsifiable hypothesis and, falsifiable hypotheses are the basis of science. (I'm basing this on the arguments of Karl Popper, some of which I've read, albeit 15 – 20 years ago.)

The best that scientists can say is, "If our model is correct, and if there are no unexpected breaks in the chain of causation, then we believe this will happen." As lawyers say in a somewhat different context: Novus actus interveniens. If the Sun explodes, or there is an asteroid impact, perhaps the new Pangea never happens. If one of the variables in the calculation is only slightly inaccurate, a crucial threshold moves and Pangea forms twice as fast, or half as fast, or not at all.

I'm not for one minute saying that they're wrong. What I'm saying is that it is not a falsifiable hypothesis, yet we tend to accept this sort of prediction as it if were somehow "true". However, if a priest or oracle made a prophecy that something would happen many generations hence, on an unspecified date with a massive margin for error, we would rightly be sceptical.

And the reason I'm pointing this out is not to criticise the scientist, or to mock their research, or even to argue in favour of priests and oracles, but to highlight an inconsistency in how we tend to accept something as "scientific" because it comes from scientists. As Forteans, we should be alert to the limitations of science, and understand that there are many standards of truth and of proof.
 
"Unless the Sun explodes" can be added to most theories surely.
 
... I'm not for one minute saying that they're wrong. What I'm saying is that it is not a falsifiable hypothesis, yet we tend to accept this sort of prediction as it if were somehow "true". However, if a priest or oracle made a prophecy that something would happen many generations hence, on an unspecified date with a massive margin for error, we would rightly be sceptical. ...

It is a falsifiable hypothesis, but one whose falsifiability cannot be put to the test now or in the reasonably foreseeable future.

This does not render it 'unscientific', unless one is playing upon the notion of 'science as a dogmatic authoritarian meta-institution' that has gained currency in the post-rational 'pigeonhole-everything-and-everbody-to-suit-one's-objectives' malaise into which Western culture continues to slide.

When this notion is evident from within science, it's an error suggestive of misplaced certainty or outright hubris. When evident from outside, it's an error suggestive of misunderstanding what 'science' represents in the first place.

I completely agree with your point about the shaky bases for the hypothesis being taken as 'true' in any absolute sense. This issue served as the primary basis for Fort's recurrent critiques of science.
 
"Unless the Sun explodes" can be added to most theories surely.
Of course, in theory. Tomorrow's picnic could be cancelled if the Sun explodes.

However, in this case, according to the article, we are talking about a timescale of not less than 200 million years. That is an enormous span of time. I've drawn comparisons with the period between the reign of the dinosaurs and the present day. On such a timescale "cosmic events" may intervene, and "the Sun exploding" is a shorthand for that. Certainly, the Sun may change its temperature during that time, which may affect many things on Earth. Large meteorite/asteroid impacts during the next 200 million years are almost inevitable.
 
Exploratory simulation studies have been undertaken to project future plate tectonic results. One projection is that Somalia will break off from today's Africa and crash into what's now India. This will create a mountain range the researchers dubbed the Somalayas. Unfortunately, the accuracy of their predictions won't be testable for another 150 - 200 million years.
The 'Somalaya Mountains' Might Be The Biggest Mountain Range You'll Never Get to See

Every geography schoolbook has them: maps that look like today's Earth, but not quite, since all continents are merged into a single supercontinent. Those maps were used to explain why dinosaurs in South America and Africa, or North America and Europe looked so alike.

Paleogeographic reconstructions like these provide context to study the processes that shape our planet: the Earth's engines of plate tectonics, volcanism, and mountain building, and their interactions with the oceans, atmosphere, and sun that shape climate and life. ...

But the biggest problem for paleogeography is not the details: It's that as much as 70 percent of the Earth's crust that existed as 'recently' as 150-200 million years ago, when dinosaurs were already roaming the planet, has been lost to subduction into the Earth's inner mantle. ...

In recent years, when I explained how we make reconstructions of paleogeography from modern mountain ranges, I was sometimes asked if we could also predict future mountains. I always said, "Sure, but why would I? I'd have to wait a hundred million years to see if I'm right."

But then I realized that this could be an interesting thought experiment. Predicting the architecture of future mountain ranges would require formulating a set of 'rules of mountain building', which had not been done before. ...

And we would have to predict how the geography we know well would transform into mountain belts ... And would we produce mountain belts that look much like the ones we have?

So we did. I formulated the rules by comparing which features are commonly found in mountain belts. My then-MSc student Thomas Schouten used the rules to predict the geological architecture of a mountain belt that will form in the next 200 million years, if Somalia, as expected, breaks off from Africa and collides with India.

The resulting mountain range, which we called the 'Somalaya mountains', might be the Himalayas of their day. And seeing such similarities between the Somalaya and known mountains today can provide us with possible solutions we never thought of for paleogeographic evolution. ...
FULL STORY (With Link To Introductory Video):
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-so...untain-range-you-ll-never-get-a-chance-to-see
 
Yeah! Yetis will still have somewhere to live.:)
 
It all assumes that geographic features change at a slow pace, all be it one that relatively speeds up over millions of years.

But the rapid formations of islands from volcanic means shows it is possible for more rapid change.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surtsey
 
... Geologists seem confident our current continents will move so as to once again coalesce into a single supercontinent - so confident they've already named it (Amasia / Pangea Proxima). ...

Update ... Based on more recent supercomputer simulation results the Curtin University researchers cited above have come to believe a single supercontinent (Amasia) is the most likely outcome of current tectonic trends.

The Pacific Is Destined to Vanish as Earth's Continents Meld Into a New Supercontinent

The Pacific Ocean's days are numbered, according to a new supercomputer simulation of Earth's ever-drifting tectonic plates.

The good news? Our planet's oldest ocean still has another 300 million years to go. If the Pacific gets lucky, it might even celebrate its billionth birthday before finally trickling out of existence.

But researchers at Curtin University in Australia think the ocean is likely to be swallowed up before that. ...

Each year, a few centimeters of the Pacific plate slips under the Eurasian plate and the Indo-Australian plate, collapsing the distance between North America, Asia and Australia.

Not all scientists agree on what the next supercontinent will look like or how it will form, but in many simulations, the Pacific Ocean is doomed.

While some studies suggest the Atlantic Ocean, which is expanding today, might start to shrink in the future, thereby creating a supercontinent ringed by a super Pacific ocean, researchers at Curtin University disagree.

Instead of a second Pangaea-like continent (aka Pangaea Proxima) forming, they argue the world is headed for a supercontinent in which North America collides with Asia, dubbed Amasia. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/the-pa...ths-continents-meld-into-a-new-supercontinent
 
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