Amasia (continent)
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Amasia is a possible future
supercontinent In geology, a supercontinent is the assembly of most or all of Earth's continental blocks or cratons to form a single large landmass. However, some geologists use a different definition, "a grouping of formerly dispersed continents", which leav ...
which could be formed by the merger of
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
and North America. The prediction relies mostly on the fact that the Pacific Plate is already
subducting Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...
under
Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago ...
and North America, a process which if continued will eventually cause the Pacific to close. Meanwhile, because of the
Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
mid-ocean ridge A mid-ocean ridge (MOR) is a seafloor mountain system formed by plate tectonics. It typically has a depth of about and rises about above the deepest portion of an ocean basin. This feature is where seafloor spreading takes place along a diver ...
, North America would be pushed westward. Thus, the Atlantic at some point in the future would be larger than the
Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...
. In
Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...
, the boundary between the
Eurasian Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Ja ...
and
North American Plate The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Cuba, the Bahamas, extreme northeastern Asia, and parts of Iceland and the Azores. With an area of , it is the Earth's second largest tectonic plate, behind the Pacif ...
s has been stationary for millions of years. The combination of these factors would cause North America to be combined with Asia, thus forming a supercontinent. A February 2012 study predicts Amasia will form over the North Pole, in about 50 to 200 million years.Smith Kerri
Supercontinent Amasia to take North Pole Position
Nature.com, 8 Feb 2012


Alternative scenarios

Paleogeologist Ronald Blakey has described the next 15 to 100 million years of tectonic development as fairly settled and predictableManaugh, Geoff & al
"What Did the Continents Look Like Millions of Years Ago?"
in ''The Atlantic'' online. 23 Sept 2013. Accessed 22 July 2014.
but no supercontinent will form in that time frame. Beyond that, he cautions that the geologic record is full of unexpected shifts in tectonic activity that make further projections "very, very speculative". In addition to Amasia, two other hypothetical supercontinents— Christopher Scotese's " Pangaea Proxima" and Roy Livermore's " Novopangaea"—were illustrated in an October 2007 ''
New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publish ...
'' article. Another supercontinent, Aurica, has been proposed in more recent times.


References


Further reading

* Nield, Ted, ''Supercontinent: Ten Billion Years in the Life of Our Planet,'' Harvard University Press, 2009, Future supercontinents {{palaeo-geo-stub