Three hundred million years ago, our world looked very different than it does today. Instead of seven continents, we had one: Pangaea, a supercontinent surrounded by a global ocean. Due to a process called plate tectonics, continents move over time. In 250 million years, the continents will combine again to form another supercontinent called Pangaea Ultima – and it may be bad news for mammals like us.
In a recent study published in Nature Geoscience, a team of researchers built climate simulations to investigate how the formation of Pangaea Ultima will affect mammals. When supercontinents form, there is increased volcanism that leads to higher levels of carbon dioxide in the air, which in turn leads to hotter temperatures. The researchers found that most of Pangaea Ultima will consistently experience temperatures hotter than 40°C (104°F). Depending on uncertainties in their model, 8-25% of Pangaea Ultima will remain habitable to mammals, in comparison to 66% of land today. Nearly half of the supercontinent will be desert. This drastic climate upheaval and decrease in living space is likely to cause a mass extinction event.
While the study paints a bleak picture for the future habitability of Earth, all hope is not lost: life has survived five mass extinction events in the past. This work also provides interesting food for thought to scientists hoping to find habitable planets elsewhere in the universe. Astronomers often discuss the “habitable zone”, the distance from a star where a planet has a suitable temperature for life. These calculations do not account for the distribution of continents, which the researchers argue is a mistake: in their models, they found that Earth still had habitable regions, even in cases where the astrophysical calculation considered it uninhabitable. This finding implies that more planets may be habitable than previously thought.
This study was led by Dr. Alexander Farnsworth, a senior research associate in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol.
Managing Correspondent: Emily Pass
Press Article: This is what Earth’s continents will look like in 250 million years (News from Nature)
Original Journal Article: Climate extremes likely to drive land mammal extinction during next supercontinent assembly (Nature Geoscience)
Image Credit: Pixabay/ELG21
Why not worry about climate change ? It need attention now. No man can predict what happens only God has a plan.
Climate change is a big problem. And we must WORK TOGETHER AS THE HUMANS ON THIS PLANET TO SAVE OUR ONLY SOURCE OF LIVELIHOOD. WHICH IS PLANET EARTH. Let’s all stop being trolls take each others hands, and walk together in this hell and do everything in our very power to reverse the damage our forefathers did. We could do it united. But divided my friend we all fall!
I totally agree with you my friend
I don’t know why people even complain no one ever does anything to change it.
We can’t help it, we are killing ourselves. Humans basically stupid. Glad I’ll be dead. Good luck
Right on. We think we can breed like rabbits
All the galaxies and n8ght stuff we see in the ski is light years into the past. Quite possibly most of it is not even existing.
Predicting so far in future is exercise in wishful thinking.
Humans will manage to wipe out all life on this planet long before Pangaea 2.0
We probably have a few more pressing climate events before Pangaea 2.0 gets here 😂.
Wow I’m so worried! In this length of time mankind will have left the planet they trashed, evolved into something else or simply died off.
B S. I’m calling it and I’m no scholar or scientist by any means. I just know there’s no way you could possibly predict accurate tectonic plate movement and even if you could, there’s no way you can accurately predict a timeline of when. This is ridiculous propaganda and it’s a shame the scientific community is so desperate for validation this kind of drivel is being passed off as true. How the mighty have fallen…
And yet you are still not a scientist. You Probably think the world is flat and voted for trump.
…propaganda?
what the actual **** are you talking about? Harvard is now a mouthpiece for Big Supercontinent?
How is this propaganda
Oh you! Mr. Smart probably voted for sniffer Biden who is leading us to extinction. Very smart haha
We all know the world is round, duh 🙄 and just because we voted for Trump doesn’t mean we are stupid. Besides the human race won’t be around to see another supercontinent form. We will all be gone by then. And good riddance to that.
Love your comment. Its a mirror image of mine as well had I took the time to respond to this guy’s incompetence. Haha 😅
Taft, are you a scientist?
What are you basing your comments on?
Science is not fixed. Scientists have no problem adjusting the model to the discovery of new findings….
I cant believe that we’re worried about what’s going to happen in 250 million years and as always to find other planet’s to live at. Give it up and worry about what’s happening now, let’s help each others out.
Thanks for reading.
It is some much going on here and now..but it seems like everyone is for themselves..to many people is starving homeless..I just lost everything including my husband and still give the shirt, and so do my kids..we are going into extinction anyway because the Lack of love on this planet..I look forward to my FATHER(GOD)..He is love and forgiveness…that is all he ask of us to be..sad to say I am yet to see this…knowing what I am going through no one is helping family friends especially government…we are ready heading for extinction, we’re doing to ourselves…sending much love
Your comment is very inspiring. Hopefully more and many people see it and think about what you said. Thank you for that. And, God bless you and your children and I am sorry for your loss.
I think that some foresight is in order however I have to agree with you sir. To be honest, the truth is that it doesn’t matter how much foresight you have if you’re in quicksand now. I’m not one to be what I would consider irresponsible. I believe in caution. I believe in setting goals and attaining them. However, if we don’t lend a hand to each other now then we may not become the kind of people that don’t deserve a hand later.
Those were my thoughts exactly
Nice 👍 good morning sir have an awesome weekend ahead