• Question: the plates move which causes everything to move slightly, where do you think the countries will end up in a million years?

    Asked by ehab2k11 to Steve, Julian, Jemma, Eoin, Charlie on 22 Mar 2011.
    • Photo: Stephen Moss

      Stephen Moss answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Hi Ehab
      I expect that a million years may not be long enough for the continents to move very far because they go so slowly, but I think we’d find the UK further out into the Atlantic and therefore nearer America.

    • Photo: Eoin Lettice

      Eoin Lettice answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Scientists who study these things (geologists) say that the continents are moving a few centimetres every year. If you were on earth 200 million years ago, all of the continents would have been squashed together in a single super continent called Pangea.
      Over the coming years, the Atlantic ocean will continue to get wider (so Africa and South America will continue to seperate). On the other side, the pacific is getting smaller and the Mediterranean will eventualluy close up and the scientists estimate that Australia will move up to the equator in the next 60 million years.

      Eoin

    • Photo: Charlie Ryan

      Charlie Ryan answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      hi ehab i don’t really know but this website has a prediction for 250 millions years into the future –
      http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast06oct_1/

      Seems the uk is due to end up next to canada – oh great!!

    • Photo: Julian Rayner

      Julian Rayner answered on 22 Mar 2011:

      Not a geologist, but I do think that these can be predicted. It is great to look at the maps that geologists have of how the world used to look – Antarctica somewhere up near the equator, North and South America completely separate. If I could choose, I would move England south a good way, so it was a lot warmer…. 😉

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