There was very interesting article in the NY Times online newspaper today entitled Long-Term Global Forecast? Fewer Continents. The article discussed plate tectonics, and the work being done by some geologist in using data to make predictions about the where the plates and continents will be 50 million to 100 million years into the future. These geologists have created maps and animations to show how the plates moved in the past, and how they will move in the future. One result, for example, is that Los Angeles will become a suburb of San Francisco (in 50 million years!). The article has an interesting animation that you will enjoy. It shows North America and South America reversing direction and colliding with Africa and Europe resulting in a new single continent, Ultima Pangea (Australia has long since moved and crashed into China!).

One of the scientists mentioned in the article is geologist Christopher R. Scotese, who has been developing plate tectonics animations for thirty years. I first came across his work when he published an article in the Journal of Geological Education in 1975 showing how the continents had moved throughout geological time. I was working a book, The Whole Cosmos Catalog of Science Activities, and realized that his array of maps would be a great activity of the book in the form of a flip book (we didn’t have computer animations back in those days, so flip books did the trick). We called it “Continents A-Go-Go.” Scotese was a pioneer in making the Theory of Plate Tectonics concrete and practical, and his ideas found their way into school earth science text books. In 1972 a group working at Florida State University on the Intermediate Science Curriculum Study (ISCS) designed a physical animation to show the new concept of “sea floor spreading.” It wasn’t anyway near what present animations do, but it also found its way into science textbooks. The 70s represented the emergence of the Theory of Plate Tectonics, and by the end of the decade it was the accepted theory that unified many fields of geology. Geologist such as Scotese, and Robert Dietz, another geologist mentioned in the NY Times artice, led the way.

Predicting the future, especially 50 millions on, is a daunting task. But it has done much to show students how dynamic is the earth. Predictions in climatology also are daunting, such as the present controvery surrounding global warming. These predictions are based on data and computer models, and provide much insight into the Earth.