Lead
"Is there no problem with the earth's climate and environment now?"
One day, my elementary school teacher suddenly asked.
We were all confused, but we still replied in unison: "Teacher, the earth has been formed for so long, and most of the various disaster news circulating now are rumors, which shows that the environment of the earth is very good now!"
The teacher smiled slightly, and then said, "However, the earth is not the same forever!"
The tectonic plates on Earth are still fissing, moving, and colliding!
That's why scientists are always looking for a second home that is suitable for human habitation. "## I. Tectonic plate movements.
Since its birth, the Earth has been destined to be very young, and this is because of the fact that its interior is very active.
The earth's crust is on the outside, so people often compare the age of the earth with the various cracks and faults in the earth's crust.
But this is not the case, those cracks in the earth's crust, under the magic of nature, only need hundreds of thousands of years, millions of years, can be almost formed, but the earth has existed for 4.5 billion years!
This is what the active interior of the Earth is made of.
There are countless plates of rock in the earth's crust, which are like fragile bones, and the lava underground is like the blood of excitement.
These plates are constantly splitting, colliding, twisting, disappearing, appearing, much like the bones, muscles, nerves, and blood of the human body, constantly working together and moving internally.
"Walking into this sea, it is the water column of whales,
The bones of the mountain were thrown into the air, and it was a cave carved out by humans.
The enormity of the mountain makes us admire, but there are countless crevices in the mountain.
It was two billion years to form the skeleton of the earth......"
The first half of the earth was very peaceful, and the ancestors of mankind never stopped, they may be curious about the meteors in the sky, and afraid of the wind and grass on the ground, but they will never think: "The magic of nature gives the mountains and rivers more than just scenery!"
They don't know that the membranes on the earth's skeletons, the outer epidermis, are likely the cracks that killed them.
"The stone under my feet, washed by the rain,
It seems to be calm and motionless, but it is constantly moving.
It's squeezed out of shape, it's pulled out of faults,
It's just like us, but the activity has no echo. ”
This is the perception of human ancestors living in Qingshi Gorge, the occupation of my ancestors, and the recorder of the movement of the earth.
They did their best to collect news from various places, draw pictures and write to record the pain of breaking free from the wounds of nature's staff, so that future generations can know that nature is not only beautiful but also cruel.
2. The boundaries of the African plate.
There are seven continents and four oceans on Earth, and their dividing line is basically on the dividing line of tectonic plates.
The African continent is the oldest of the seven continents, dating back 4.7 billion years, the early days of the Earth's formation.
At the southernmost tip of the African continent, there is a huge plate called the African Plate, which has been resting for billions of years under the "blessing" of the African continent.
It is often said that Africa is a stable continent, and this statement is somewhat problematic.
The real continent is relatively fine, but in general, the continent's plate boundaries are diverging, which means that the continent is changing, and it is possible that new plates, or even new continents, may be formed.
We know that there are three types of tectonic plates on Earth
Type: Mid-oceanic, mid-land, and marginal plates.
The African plate belongs to the mid-continental plate, which means that the boundaries of the African continent are all mid-ocean plates, so the African plate will not have folds and orogeny.
Still, there is a certain amount of change between the tectonic plates of the African continent.
There has always been pressure between these plates because of the friction between the plates.
Eventually, these pressures will lead to the movement of the plates, but because they are mid-continental, the magnitude of the movement is generally not very large.
The reason why it is said that the African plates are diverging is because there is a certain amount of liquidity in the plates except for the center, and among these flowing plates, there are many plates that are in a state of separation.
At the northernmost tip of the African continent, the Eurasian plate and the African plate are one piece, but this plate was part of the East African Rift Plate at the earliest time.
The strong movement of the Eurasian and African plates caused part of the original East African Rift Plate to be struck by the northward Eurasian plate, and the other part to be pulled by the Moroccan Mediterranean plate.
As a result, the original East African Rift Plate split into the Indian Ocean Ridge Plate in the east and the Emmonse Plate in the west.
And this is not the only thing that happens in this one place.
To the west of the African continent, there are two marginal plates, the South American plate and the Armenian plate, both of which have a certain amount of sliding between them and the African plate.
As a result, when the continent is to the east, it will feel the forces of the Indian Ocean Ridge plate moving westward, and when it is to the west, it will be affected by the forces of the South American plate and the African plate at the same time.
The South American plate is the Antarctic plate, and to the south of it is a plate called the "Scott Depression", which also has a certain traction between it and the South American plate, so the African plate will also be pulled to the south.
Another plate is the Arabian plate, which will also exert some pressure on the African plate when it comes into contact with the African plate.
When the Arabian plate came into contact with the Eurasian plate, it created a long fault zone, which is known as the Himalayas.
In the Himalayas, there used to be many ancient civilizations, but now it is a pity that its majesty has been lost by the wind, and many ancient civilizations have been extinct from the earth.
The Arabian plate also shows signs of separation from the African plate.
To the north, where the Eurasian plate meets, is the Mali region, which used to be a place where land and sea alternated, but due to the movement of the plates, it is now a desert, and there are very high sand mountains not far away.
Why is there so much separation and convergence between these plates?
This is because these separations and closures occur at the focal point of the earth's crustal movement, which is known as the "Alpha Depression".
It's like the center of the earth's crust, and when it moves, the surrounding plates change accordingly.
At the intersection of many tectonic plates, there are volcanoes, which in turn are recorders of the movement of the Alpha Depression.
Third, the future of Africa's division.
The Alpha Depression is the most rugged and the volcanoes around it are all active volcanoes, and the eruptions of these active volcanoes are signs of tectonic plate activity.
Despite the high plate activity in the Alpha Depression, scientists have studied it and simulated a number of possible outcomes.
The results of these simulations show that if the continental plate boundaries continue to diverge, it is possible that the continent will split into two continents in the future, and if this is the case, then there is a good chance that an eighth continent will be created on Earth.
And the movement of tectonic plates on Earth is not just as simple as separating the continents, it also affects the stability of the Earth's crust.
In the process of continuous fragmentation and collision of the earth's crust, many volcanoes are created that pose a serious threat to human survival.
During the supercontinental period, the earth's crust was in a state of high heat, when the earth's crust was very stable, but the water source on land was very scarce, and this environment forced life to evolve.
However, as the earth's crust continues to split, people's living environment becomes more and more superior, but this does not mean that the earth's crust is stable.
Relatively speaking, in the early stage of large-scale human activities, people will not feel the threat of crustal movement, but in the 21st century, human beings have been close to the focus of crustal activities, if we continue to strengthen our own technological construction, then the threat brought by crustal activities will attract the attention of all mankind.
In the most active places of the earth's crust, there will always be people, so people can understand the horror of these threats.
Earthquakes are common in places where the earth's crust is active, and these earthquakes, if they bring a tsunami, can lead to the death of millions of people.
In places where the earth's crust is active, volcanic eruptions deform the surrounding mountains and rivers, and such earthquakes and volcanoes mean mass death of human beings every time.
Life is not only for Homo sapiens, but also for the living environment and the surrounding environment of human beings, from primitive single-celled organisms to today's humans, life is constantly adapting to natural changes.
epilogue
Life on Earth is drifting under this time.
The Alpha Depression could give rise to an entirely new pan-continent called Amesia, the combined continent of the Americas and Africa.
Changes in the movement of the Earth's tectonic plates may pose no small challenges to human civilization and require the attention of scientists and everyone.
In the future, large-scale geological disasters may occur on the earth, and science and technology are the ultimate weapons to mitigate these disasters.