This story appears in the June 2018 issue of National Geographic magazine.
The continents are in constant motion: Tectonic plates crash together and break apart, creating new crust while old crust is pulled below the surface. The process shrinks and widens oceans, uplifts mountain ranges, and rearranges landmasses. In about 250 million years a new supercontinent, Pangaea Proxima, will form.
PANGAEA
PROXIMA
Equator
Pacific
Ocean
3,000 mi
3,000 km
SCALE AT THE EQUATOR
Elevation
Sea
level
30,000 ft
9,000 m
15,000 ft
4,500 m
250 Million years in the future (ABOVE)
Only a vestige of the Atlantic Ocean remains
as landmasses are joined together into a new
supercontinent. New high mountains mark
the sites of massive collisions.
WORLD RESHAPED
100 MILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE
Plate activity along eastern North America
will cause the Atlantic Ocean to shrink and
continents to converge.
Europe
ASIA
South
America
AUSTRALIA
ANTARCTICA
PRESENT DAY
Today’s landscape is a blip in geologic time.
The Atlantic Ocean widens by an inch a year as
plates under it spread apart, forming new crust.
Europe
North
America
ASIA
Africa
South
America
AUSTRALIA
ANTARCTICA
100 MILLION YEARS AGO
As Pangaea divided into distinct landmasses,
the coasts of today’s continents began to
emerge, along with the Atlantic
and Indian Oceans.
North
America
ASIA
Europe
Africa
South
America
AUSTRALIA
ANTARCTICA
200 MILLION YEARS AGO
Early dinosaurs roamed the last super-
continent, Pangaea, formed by the collision
of older continents.
London
Paris
Elevation
30,000
9,000
Rome
feet
meters
Lagos
15,000
4,500
Moscow
Cairo
Sea level
PANGAEA
PROXIMA
New York
Los Angeles
Chicago
Tropic of Cancer
Possible new
highest point
Nairobi
Delhi
Mt. Everest
Cape Town
Mexico
City
Equator
Tokyo
1,000 mi
Shanghai
1,000 km
Pacific
Ocean
SCALE AT THE EQUATOR
Tropic of Capricorn
250 Million years
in the future
Lima
Sydney
Only a vestige of the Atlantic Ocean remains as landmasses are joined together into a new super-
continent. New high mountains mark the sites of massive collisions.
WORLD RESHAPED
Europe
Europe
North
America
North
America
ASIA
ASIA
Europe
ASIA
Africa
Africa
South
America
South
America
AUSTRALIA
AUSTRALIA
South
America
AUSTRALIA
ANTARCTICA
ANTARCTICA
ANTARCTICA
100 MILLION YEARS AGO
PRESENT DAY
100 MILLION YEARS
IN THE FUTURE
200 MILLION YEARS AGO
Early dinosaurs roamed
the last supercontinent,
Pangaea, formed by the
collision of older continents.
As Pangaea divided into distinct landmasses, the coasts of today’s continents began
to emerge, along with the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
Today’s landscape is a blip in geologic time. The Atlantic Ocean widens by an inch a year as plates under it spread apart, forming new crust.
Plate activity along eastern
North America will cause the
Atlantic Ocean to shrink and
continents to converge.