Our planet Earth, which is approximately 4.54 billion years old, actually has tectonic plates like puzzle pieces. These plates, which carry the continents, move slowly but continuously, just like our nails grow. Gathering the most complete tectonic plate movements ever put together in one video, scientists show us the evolution of the Earth over a billion years.In 2021, scientists visualized the data in a 40-second video, bringing the Earth’s one billion years of evolution and tectonic plate movements together completely. As can be seen from the video at the end of the article, the tectonic plates of the Earth are in constant motion. Even a thousand years ago, the plates were in a very different place from where they are now.
Antarctica was once located on the equator
The most extreme example of this situation is Antarctica, which is known for its extreme cold. But at one stage in Earth’s evolution, Antarctica was once located at our planet’s equator and was much hotter than it is now. Tectonic plates move only a few centimeters per year. Therefore, it is unlikely that we will observe change in a human lifetime. However, thanks to data and plate motion analysis, we can predict billions of years of change by creating models like the video.
Learning the movements of the plates and making predictions about the future based on models are important for the existence of humanity. Thanks to its constantly changing physical structure, the Earth creates a unique living environment. “Our planet is unique in the way it hosts life. This is only possible because geological processes such as plate tectonics provide a planetary life support system,” said geologist Dietmar Müller of the University of Sydney. explains this situation.
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