The Earth is giving birth to a mountain range greater than anything currently existing, thanks to a tectonic process full of surprises.
A mountain range will form in the next 200 million years.
Research led by Dr. Douwe van Hinsbergen, Director of the Global Tectonics and Paleogeology Center at Utrecht University (Netherlands), has constructed future tectonic models of the Earth based on ancient and modern geological data.
According to a summary on Science Alert, they discovered that a mountain range will form in the next 200 million years as the tectonic plate carrying Somalia separates from Africa and rushes towards the plate carrying India.
This event will cause the current Northwest India to plunge beneath Somalia, buried up to 50 km deep; subsequently, the plate carrying Somalia will rotate, allowing Northwest India to re-emerge in a different location. This has occurred in what is now Western Norway 400 million years ago.
A massive mountain range will form in the area between Madagascar and Africa, curving sharply, creating a mountain range larger than anything currently known, which scientists have named Somalaya, a future “Himalaya” that is even greater, according to the research group’s article in The Conversation.
All these astonishing developments stem from a phenomenon known as “plate tectonics”, the process by which 15 plates of the Earth’s crust move, altering landscapes and even the shapes of continents and oceans. Plate tectonics has caused all continents to come together to form supercontinents, only to later separate and merge again… multiple times throughout history.
Humans, with their short lifespans, cannot witness these changes clearly as they occur slowly, with changes often only becoming apparent after millions of years. However, scientists have frequently observed unusual movements, even just a few centimeters, of continents and tectonic plates. By combining data from ancient rock formations, models developed by scientists are gradually reconstructing a clearer history of Earth’s geology.
