Merdeka.com – Since the appearance of the earth, the earth’s surface has never stopped moving. The movement of the earth’s surface occurs due to the displacement of its tectonic plates.
The tectonic plates themselves are known to move up to 10 centimeters per year. This means that the earth’s surface as it is known today has a different shape from the earth’s surface billions of years ago.
In 2021, a team of scientists managed to simulate the movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates over the past 1 billion years. In the 40-second video it can be seen that the earth’s surface undergoes various changes.
Scientists explain the movement of tectonic plates affecting the Earth, such as climate, tidal patterns, animal movements and their evolution, volcanic activity, metal production, and more. Therefore, plate tectonics also supports life because it affects everything that lives on the earth’s surface.
“For the first time, a complete tectonic model has been built, including all of its boundaries,” explains geoscientist Michael Tetley.
“On the human time scale, objects move within a few centimeters per year, but as we can see from the animation, continents are everywhere in time. A place like Antarctica, which we see today as cold and icy, was actually a fun holiday destination on the equator. “
The video shows that the earth’s surface, which was originally united, separates due to the movement of the plates. The countries and continents that exist today looked like several billion years ago.
For scientists, it is necessary to understand the movement and movement patterns of tectonic plates to predict how habitable the Earth will be in the future. Knowing the movement of plates can also make it easier for humans to find resources, such as metals.
The movement of the plates can be known through terrestrial magnetism. The earth’s magnet is like an ancient record that records the position of the earth’s surface billions of years ago. Through Earth’s magnetism, scientists can match pieces of Earth’s past plates.
Through it, the team of scientists was able to piece together the most accurate model that describes the movement and interactions of Earth’s plates.
“Planet Earth is very dynamic, with a surface made up of plates that are constantly being pushed in a unique way among the known rocky planets … These plates move to the rhythm of” growing nails “, but when a billion years condenses into 40 seconds, the mesmerizing movement is revealed. Oceans open and close, continents expand and periodically recombine to form huge supercontinents, ”said Sabin Zahirovic, a geoscientist at the University of Sydney.
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