Geoscientists condense Earth's plate tectonic history into 40-second video

Geoscientists have condensed 1 billion years of Earth's tectonic plate movements into a 40-second video.

The time-lapse video is based on a detailed study by an international team of geoscientists, reconstructing for the first time the continuous migration of the tectonic plates over the last billion years. The work is published in Earth-Science Reviews, March 2021.

A time clock on the video tells where you are in time as the tectonic plates rapidly shift. The animation conveys time-condensed motion, as land masses and oceans change shapes in a rapid dance. At one point, Antarctica can be seen at the equator.

The authors point out the importance of studying plate tectonics for understanding Earth's climate and habitability. 

"Tectonic forces control the rates of uplift and erosion where continents collide or separate and modulate the flow of energy between oceans, lithosphere and mantle as continental configurations evolve," they wrote.

How the continent land masses evolve also determines species distribution, as land masses come together and separate.

The ongoing work makes use of many previous plate models for different geological time periods and with different methodologies. This, however, is the first continuous and complete model. It also incorporates recent geological, magnetic and oceanographic data.

The authors describe their selection process of tectonic plate models in detail, as well as the mechanics of the geometric modeling.

The geoscience team comments in a University of Sydney news release that this "entirely new model of Earth evolution over the last billion years" has practical uses, for example, in helping to find new metal resources that can lessen dependence on carbon technologies, or furthering understanding of convection in the Earth's interior and volcanic action on the seafloor." 

The researchers conclude with an eye toward future research. 

"Because our model has continuous plate boundaries, it enables a range of new scientific experiments such as those seeking to link plate boundary processes to other aspects of the Earth system," they wrote. "This includes experiments related to the biosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere investigating events surrounding oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere, 'snowball Earth' and animal radiation and those studying the deep Earth."

The authors are affiliated with the EarthByte international research group at the University of Sydney School of Geosciences.