What if another supercontinent forms?

What if another supercontinent forms?

In geology, Supercontinent is a continent formed by the fusion of two or more continents due to collision. Gondwana is an example of a supercontinent, broken into modern continents; India, Africa, South America, Antarctica, and Australia.The Earth's crust is not solid; it consists of seven small and ten major tectonic plates, which move and slide over molten rocks, collide with each other or diverge. They move at the same speed as your nails, and have taken different forms throughout the history of the earth. At multiple points, all terrestrial masses converged together to form super continents, and the effects excavated on the rocks suggest that this could happen again.

There is no consensus among scientists on the shape of the next great continent; it depends on what happens to the tectonic plates beneath the oceans. When the peripheral plates hit other plates, subduction areas may appear (where a plate slides or falls under another and merges into its mantle). This occurs in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and in the Arctic Circle, causing tectonic plates to shrink and move. Research by geophysicists at Yale University suggests that the Arctic Circle may be the location of the next great continent.

When the rocks melt, the iron atoms are organized toward the Earth's magnetic field. And then, when the rocks harden, they lock into place. This leaves a trace of the direction the land mass was facing when it was formed, so that as the continents moved we could see where it came from. By studying these effects, the team of scientists found that the center of each supercontinent was about 90 degrees from the center of the last one. If the next great continent follows this pattern, it will surround what is now the Arctic Circle.

Sources : Wikipedia 

Yale University