The Arctic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea will disappear, and Asia will crash into the Americas forming a new supercontinent called Amasia over the next 200 to 300 million years, scientists have said.
“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,” said Dr Chuan Huang, lead author of a study published in the journal National Science Review.
Researchers explained that Earth’s supercontinents are believed to have formed in vastly two different ways – introversion and extroversion. “The former involves the closure of the internal oceans formed during the break-up of the previous supercontinent, whereas the latter involves the closure of the previous external superocean,” they said, as per The Independent.
“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,” Mr Huang added.
