Incredible video reveals how the Earth’s surface has changed over the past 100 MILLION years
Although we may not always notice it, our planet’s surface is constantly shifting beneath our feet.
To demonstrate this, scientists at the University of Sydney in Australia modeled how Earth’s landscape has changed over the past 100 million years.
It takes into account how climate has affected the movement of sediment through rivers and seas, as well as the movement of the tectonic plates.
The researchers hope that their model can accurately test theories about the future effects of climate change on the Earth’s surface.
“To predict the future, we need to understand the past,” says lead author Dr Tristan Salles.
A picture of the Earth after 50 million years of cumulative erosion and sedimentation generated by the model. It shows erosion over mountain ranges and other high points, as well as large sediment accumulations along continental shelves and basins
“But our geological models have provided only a fragmented understanding of how our planet’s recent physical features have formed.
‘If you’re looking for a continuous model of the interplay between river basins, global scale erosion and high-resolution sediment deposition over the past 100 million years, it just doesn’t exist.
“So this is a big step forward. Not only is it a tool to help us explore the past, but it will also help scientists understand and predict the future.”
The planet’s current landscape is the result of millions of years of climate change and tectonic plate movement.
Composed of Earth’s crust and the upper part of the mantle, the rocky second layer, these plates float atop a hot, viscous belt of rock called the asthenosphere.
The asthenosphere causes them to collide and brush against each other, changing the landscape with the formation of mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes.
Climate, on the other hand, can affect the weathering of sediment, causing it to break down and end up in bodies of water.
It can also cause rivers to form or overflow, and change their flow rates — processes that affect sediment movement.
For their model, published today in Sciencewanted to show researchers how today’s geophysical landscapes evolved with the highest resolution yet.
They used geologic data to simulate how the elevation of the land changed over time, then factored in old climate data from a separate computer model.
Their final model was calibrated and tested by comparing the predictions to real natural examples of sediment formations and water flow processes.
The planet’s current landscape is the result of millions of years of climate change and tectonic plate movement. Composed of Earth’s crust and the upper part of the mantle, the rocky second layer, these plates float atop a hot, viscous belt of rock called the asthenosphere. The asthenosphere causes them to collide and bump into each other, changing the landscape with the formation of mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes
Climate, on the other hand, can affect the weathering of sediment, causing it to break down and end up in bodies of water. It can also cause rivers to form or overflow, and change their flow rates – processes that affect the movement of sediment
A: A photograph of the Earth’s major rivers model 50 million years ago, B: A photograph of the Earth after 50 million years of cumulative erosion and sedimentation, C: Part of the Earth’s surface after 100 million years of landscape evolution
The resulting time-lapse visualizes the landscape at high resolution, with erosion up to 5 km deep and sediment deposits up to 5 km high.
Each frame shows the progress of another million years on Earth.
Second author Dr Laurent Husson of the Institut des Sciences de la Terre in France, said: ‘This unprecedented high-resolution model of the Earth’s recent past will equip geoscientists with a more complete and dynamic understanding of the Earth’s surface.
“Critically, it captures the dynamics of sediment transfer from the land to the oceans in a way we couldn’t before.”
Human-induced climate change is known to change the chemical composition of the ocean and the processes that take place in it.
The team hopes the model will provide a better understanding of the impact this has on current and future sedimentary processes.
Dr. Salles said: ‘Our findings will provide scientists in other fields with a dynamic and detailed background to prepare and test hypotheses, such as in biochemical cycles or in biological evolution.’
The Earth moves beneath our feet: Tectonic plates move through the mantle, producing earthquakes as they scrape against each other
Tectonic plates are composed of the Earth’s crust and the upper part of the mantle.
Below this is the asthenosphere: the warm, viscous conveyor belt of rock on which tectonic plates ride.
The Earth has fifteen tectonic plates (pictured) that together have formed the landscape we see around us today
Earthquakes usually occur at the boundaries of tectonic plates, where one plate dips under another, pushes another upward, or where plate edges scrape against each other.
Earthquakes rarely occur in the center of plates, but they can happen when old faults or cracks are reactivated far below the surface.
These areas are relatively weak compared to the surrounding plate and can easily slip and cause an earthquake.
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