The world wasn’t always as we know it today. Continents merged and separated many times. The Earth that previously swallowed its super-ocean özgü the potential to do this again.
Earth’s surface is constantly changing. Even though our lifetime is not enough to understand this change, continents and oceans are constantly moving and forming new geographical shapes. According to scientists, there are two different cycles that make up these shapes.
Rodinia, Earth’s previous supercontinent before Pangea, was very different from Pangea. The team, led by Zheng-Xiang Li of Curtin University in Australia, argues that the shape changes in the earth’s crust occur in two different ways.
According to researchers, Earth’s crust is renewed every two supercontinents. To change the crust, a new super-ocean must emerge and a new ring of fire emerges. The ring of fire here is a term that describes the region of volcanoes on the ocean floor, where frequent earthquakes occur.
According to the researchers, there are two ways of supercontinent formation. One of these ways is the introverted method, the other is the extroverted method. The introverted method involves a single continent and a single piece, a huge ocean surrounding it. The continents are then separated by a single inner ocean, and at some point, a ring of fire begins to biçim on the inner ocean floor. The ocean is starting to be engulfed by the planet in this ring of fire. Continents are coming together again and forming a new supercontinent. The old super ocean surrounds the new supercontinent.
In the extrovert method, both a new continent and a new ocean emerge. In this case, the supercontinent drifts creating an inland ocean. This time, the body of water that started to disappear is not the inner ocean but the super ocean. While the world swallows the super ocean, it drags the supercontinent from there to there. At some point it goes inside the supercontinent. As the once coastal regions move towards the interior of the continent, the interior regions of the fragmented crust are now beginning to biçim the coasts. The body of water that was once an inner ocean forms the new super ocean.
Li and his team studied continental and ocean movements in their models over the past 2 billion years. According to their conclusion, two cycles continue on Earth. One of these cycles is the super ocean cycle that takes 1 billion years. The other is the supercontinent cycle that takes 600 million years.
Li and his team study the molecular structures of stones from various eras and try to unravel the movements of continents. Li believes that studying tectonic movements will greatly advance the team’s work.
The researches and findings of the researchers will be published in the April issue of Precamrian Research magazine.
Source: https://www.livescience.com/64707-earth-swallowed-superocean.html
