Continents Concentrated: Earth’s Landmasses Unevenly Distributed due to Supercontinent Cycle
New research highlights the ongoing effects of Earth’s supercontinent cycle, explaining why the majority of landmass currently resides in the Northern Hemisphere. While the Atlantic Ocean continues to widen,pushing the Americas away from Europe adn africa,continents aren’t spreading evenly across the globe – a phenomenon rooted in the planet’s geological history.
Every 300 to 500 million years, continents coalesce into a supercontinent, defined as containing at least 75 percent of Earth’s total landmass. The most recent supercontinent, Pangea, existed from 336 million to 175 million years ago, and its breakup continues to shape the world today, evidenced by the complementary fit of South America and Africa’s coastlines.
Prior to pangea, othre supercontinents like Gondwana existed, alongside numerous others with less familiar names. These formations and separations are driven by continental drift, a process where tectonic plates shift, pulling continents together and then breaking them apart.
Currently, Europe, Asia, and Africa are connected, but collectively cover only 57 percent of Earth’s total area. Over the next tens of millions of years, Eurasia is projected to move eastward, and the Americas westward, leading to a more dispersed distribution of landmasses. However, this dispersal is not permanent; a future supercontinent is predicted to begin forming eventually.
Interestingly, the distribution of landmasses is such that from an orbital perspective over the South Pacific Ocean – an area so vast it contains its own antipodes – Earth appears as a predominantly blue sphere.
