Adrift

When I took my first historical geology course at Tulane, back in the day, we of course studied plate techtonics and continental drift. It was a revelation to me to adjust my time sense and think about large land masses gliding along our planet's surface, splitting up or colliding. I pored over maps that geologists had reconstructed of the Paleozoic continents and features that they christened with names like Pangea, Laurasia, Gondwanaland, and the Tethys Sea. I always liked the sound of Tethys Sea. Later I was glad to be in on the joke when I saw the gag bumpersticker "Reunite Gondwanaland!"

The New York Times (their Science section is on a roll!) has a very good piece on geologists who are predicting the direction of continental drift over the next 200-300 million years. Their conclusion is that the continents will slam back together into another big supercontinent that they call Pangea Ultima.

I've pasted in their projections for western North America above. They believe that 250 million years from now, due to slippage along the San Andreas Fault, the site of the city of Los Angeles will have moved north past San Francisco to about the latitude of Alaska. I wonder what that will do to rush hour traffic on the 405?

Lots of interesting stuff. RTWT!