WELLINGTON: New Zealand will not join other countries as part of Earth’s “supercontinent” to be formed in 250 million years, reported Xinhua based on the latest study.
The new research published in this week’s Nature Geoscience depicts the formulation of the giant supercontinent and models the climate and what life would be like.
The supercontinent, to be centred around the place of modern-day Africa, will see modern-day Australia crash into Asia, and Africa into Europe, North America joining South America, and New Zealand will be excluded by not joining Australia.
There were supercontinents assembled before, which contained nearly all land, over the Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history. It was once formed between 273 and 299 million years ago.
Moreover, the study said climate extremes are likely to drive land mammal extinction during the next supercontinent assembly, after mammals have dominated Earth for approximately 55 million years thanks to their adaptations and resilience to warming and cooling during the Cenozoic.
Likewise, future New Zealand, which is expected to reach the equator in 75 million years, roughly at the time when Australia, Africa, Asia and Europe have formulated a supercontinent, would be extremely unhabitable.
All life will eventually perish in a runaway greenhouse once absorbed solar radiation exceeds the emission of thermal radiation in several billions of years.
However, conditions rendering the Earth naturally inhospitable to mammals may develop sooner because of long-term processes linked to plate tectonics, according to the research article authored by the University of Bristol researcher Alexander Farnsworth and other scientists. – BERNAMA-XINHUA
