CONTINENTAL DRIFT

Even though earth’s landscape seems almost static on short timescales, unlike most other bodies in the solar system, its surface has been and still is changing at a comparably rapid rate. As a result of our planet’s dynamic interior, the continents themselves wander about as Earth’s crust flows and deforms like putty over the course of millions of years.

Over most of its history, Earth has been going through a so-called “supercontinent cycle“. As continents shift, major landmasses tend to eventually drift together and coalesce into a single supercontinent, surrounded by a single super-ocean. The most well-known such landmass is “Pangea“ which existed during most of the era of the dinosaurs, which was preceded by Pannotia, Rodinia and several others. However, as trapped heat from the Earth’s mantle slowly builds up in the center of this global landmass, faults and rift valleys appear (such as the Great Rift Valley in modern Africa). Cratons drift away from each other as the supercontinent breaks up, setting the stage for the next cycle once again

This infographic showcases the gradual evolution of the Earth’s continents, from the formation of the first stable cratons over 3 billion years ago to the predicted continental configurations in the far future. Positions of the fragments of the continents as we know them in the present day are shown for clarity.

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