We recognise that Earth ’s surface looked quite different in the geologic past tense thanks to geologic maps , dodo grounds , magnetized “ compasses ” put away in volcanic mineral and supercomputer model . Now , courtesy of software engineerIan Webster , you could use a 3Dinteractive toolto see how the planet ’s continents and oceans have alter over deep fourth dimension in marvelous particular .
" Ancient Earth " was make using data point fromGPlates . This is an receptive - course reservoir of plate tectonic data that reveals the movements of tectonic plates over Earth ’s account . Webster added the ocular flair to this data , which mean you could see what Earth looked like when the first flowers appeared , for exercise .
If you ’re so fain , you could typewrite in your address into a hunting box . If the domain is was on existed back then , and it ’s been track through geological metre , a dot will appear on the three-D globe , indicating roughly where you would have lived back then .
As noted byGizmodo , the function default to 240 million year before present , when Pangaea was at its most complete and the age of the dinosaur was just start . Here ’s the thing , though : as this app evidence rather resplendently , Pangaea was hardly the first supercontinent , and it sure as shooting wo n’t be the last .
The world ’s geology is acolossal jigsaw , made of ginormous tectonic plate , and they ’re all moving around in different ways . Most things move pretty tardily , on the order of a few millimeters per yr .
Such is the sheath with theEast African Riftsystem , where at a Y - shaped triple junction , the impertinence is being torn apart . What started 25 million years ago will leave in the creation of a unexampled ocean perhaps 10 million years from now , with plenty ofweird volcanismfeaturing along the path .
For rationality that geologist are yet to in good order comprehend , there is also the aforementioned supercontinental hertz . When the entirety of the Earth was ( possibly ) enveloped by ice 700 - 1,000 million years ago , for illustration , there was a supercontinent calledRodinia(“Motherland ” ) , which you may see on Webster ’s app . In a few hundred million years , there will beanothersupercontinent .
The job , however , is that although there is a harsh convention to the cycle’stiming , much of it remains puzzling .
At present tense , authors disagree on whatkickstartedit , and whatcausesthebreakups : They ’re potentially triggered by “ bottom - up ” process – mantle effect originating at groovy profoundness ripping continents apart . On the other hand , they could be split by “ top - down ” process ; i.e. the subduction and obliteration of tectonic plates .
Continents , particularly Old , thick continental landmasses namedcratons – like those in Antarctica and Canada – are especially unchanging . Denser oceanic freshness may tumble down beneath less dense continental freshness and be destruct and recycle , but those truly ancient cratonsremain .
Volcanic islands are always the babe - aged additions to Earth ’s mapmaking ; many that exist today werenon - existentback in the day of Pangaea , as Webster ’s app also shows .
A tectonic plate descending ( subducting ) under another creates complex , often volatile vent at the surface . Alternatively , superhot Mickey Charles Mantle plume rise up into the infrastructure of the crust , where they spread out anddecompresses , triggering a large grade of thaw . If this occurs in the middle of an pelagic tectonic plate , it can generate surface volcanism and land – and that is fundamentally how theHawaiian archipelagoemerged .
As the tectonic photographic plate continues to vagabond , but the feather remains essentially stationary , this entail that volcanism on Kilauea will ultimately die and its younger sib , Loihi , in this case , currently an underwater volcano , will jump above the waves .
On a human level , of course , all this means what we take for granted – where we live – is temporary on geological timescales . This was illustrate rather terrifically back in January : astudyfound that a tiny town in Australia was built on rock that , once upon a time , used to be in Canada .
[ H / T : Kottke ]
