Far into the future, the Earth’s landmasses are predicted to merge once again, forming a new supercontinent. One of the leading possibilities is a massive continent named Amasia, hypothesized to form from the collision of North America and Asia. This would create a single, vast landmass that would dramatically reshape the globe. This glimpse into our planet’s distant future comes from complex models of continental drift.
The Supercontinent Cycle
The predicted formation of Amasia is part of a repeating pattern in Earth’s history known as the supercontinent cycle. This process involves the periodic assembly of the planet’s continental crust into a single, enormous landmass, followed by its eventual breakup and dispersal. This cycle unfolds over 300 to 500 million years, and the forces of plate tectonics drive this global rearrangement.
The most famous example of this phenomenon is Pangaea, which formed approximately 320 million years ago and began to break apart about 175 million years ago. Pangaea’s existence explains features like the complementary shapes of South America and Africa and the distribution of ancient fossils and mountain ranges across modern oceans. Before Pangaea, other supercontinents dominated the planet, including Rodinia and Columbia, showing that the formation of a supercontinent like Amasia would be another turn in a long-standing geological cycle.
How Amasia is Predicted to Form
The leading hypothesis for Amasia’s formation is a process known as orthoversion. This model predicts that the next supercontinent will form 90 degrees away from the center of its predecessor, Pangaea. In this scenario, both North America and Asia will drift northwards, ultimately colliding and merging over the present-day Arctic Ocean.
This movement is driven by the ongoing subduction of the Pacific Plate, which is currently sinking beneath the continental plates of Eurasia and North America along the “Ring of Fire.” This process is pulling the Americas westward and Asia eastward, slowly closing the Pacific Ocean. As the continents converge, the Arctic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea are expected to disappear. Australia is also predicted to continue its northward drift, eventually connecting with the newly formed Amasia. This continental migration is predicted to form Amasia in the next 50 to 200 million years.
Competing Supercontinent Theories
While the Amasia hypothesis is a prominent model, it is one of several competing scientific predictions for Earth’s next supercontinent. Geologists have proposed other scenarios based on different interpretations of tectonic plate movements, highlighting the speculative nature of forecasting geological events so far into the future.
One alternative is Pangaea Proxima, hypothesized by Christopher Scotese. This model suggests that the Atlantic Ocean will stop widening and begin to close, bringing the Americas, Europe, and Africa back together. Another possibility is Novopangaea, which posits that the Pacific Ocean will close, causing the Americas to collide with Antarctica before rotating and crashing into Eurasia. A fourth scenario, known as Aurica, proposes the closure of both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, with a new ocean basin splitting Eurasia.
The Future World of Amasia
The formation of Amasia would create a world with a drastically different climate and geography. Computer simulations exploring this future scenario predict a planet significantly colder than our own. With a massive landmass assembled near the North Pole, the global ocean currents that transport heat would be disrupted. This would lead to the growth of enormous ice caps covering much of Amasia, reflecting more sunlight back into space and lowering global temperatures.
The size of the supercontinent would also result in a vast and extremely arid interior, far from the influence of oceanic moisture. The collision zones where continents merge would give rise to new mountain ranges, rivaling or even exceeding the Himalayas. Sea levels would likely be lower, as a significant amount of the planet’s water would be locked away in the polar ice sheets. Simulations suggest that only about 60% of Amasia’s land surface would have temperatures suitable for liquid water year-round.