Identify the largest mountain range on Earth that no one has seen called Somalaya

The Earth is giving birth to a mountain range greater than all that exist, thanks to a process of plate tectonics full of surprises.

The Earth is giving birth to a mountain range greater than all that exist, thanks to a process of plate tectonics full of surprises.

Picture 1 of Identify the largest mountain range on Earth that no one has seen called Somalaya

A mountain belt will form in the next 200 million years.

Research led by Dr. Douwe van Hinsbergen, Director of the Center for Global Tectonics and Paleontology, Utrecht University (Netherlands) has built models of Earth's future tectonics, based on data Ancient and modern geology.

As summarized in Science Alert, they realized that a belt of mountains will form in the next 200 million years as the tectonic plate that is "carrying" Somalia on its back separates from Africa and rushes towards the plate that is "carrying" India.

This event would cause the present northwestern part of India to sink under Somalia, buried up to 50km; then the plate bearing Somalia rotated again and let Northwestern India reappear in a different position. This happened in what is now western Norway 400 million years ago.

A huge belt of mountains will form in the gulf between Madagascar and Africa, curving sharply, creating a mountain range larger than anything present that scientists have named Somalaya, a "Himalaya" of the future, greater, according to the team's article on The Conversation.

All these amazing developments come from a phenomenon called "plate tectonics", the process of 15 pieces of Earth's crust moving, changing the landscape, even the shape of continents and oceans. positive. Plate tectonics has caused all the continents to merge into supercontinents, then split again, and then re-merge. many times in history.

People with short lives cannot clearly witness this change because it is all slow, and change usually becomes apparent only after at least a few million years. However, scientists have repeatedly noticed the unusual movement of even a few centimeters of continents and tectonic plates. Combining data from ancient rocks, models built by scientists have gradually shown more clearly the geological history of the Earth.

Update 29 December 2021
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