This episode of Map Men is brought to you by Stereo.
- Peru next to Australia?
- Mozambique joined to India?
- Malaysia in Antarctica?
- Today, we'll be asking,
where will the countries be in 250 million years?
- Welcome to Map Men.
- We're the men.
- And here's. . . the map.
♫ Map Men, Map Men, ♫ ♫ Map Map Map Men, Men. ♫
- When Mark and I hang out together,
- one of the things we often discuss-- - We never hang out,
- this is a purely business relationship. - One of the things we would discuss
is how disappointingly few double-landlocked countries there are.
Countries that are not only landlocked,
but surrounded by landlocked countries.
- There's Uzbekistan, there's Liechtenstein,
and that's it.
- This is because the world's major land masses
are nicely spread out across the world's oceans.
and the furthest you can ever get from a coastline, is just 1,600 miles,
here in the un-Chinese sounding Gurbantünggüt Desert in China.
- But the continents haven't always been this well socially distanced.
- 180 million years ago, before the second and first world wars,
the world looked like this.
- Of course, the dinosaurs who were in charge at the time
knew nothing of the theory of plate tectonics,
that were about to drive them apart.
- It wasn't until the year 1915, collided with the person Alfred Wegener,
that this new and groundbreaking idea took hold.
Alfred was a super smart German meteorologist and geophysicist
who was particularly good at puzzles,
and, looking at the world map, Alfred spotted a pattern.
The shape of South America fit suspiciously snugly into west Africa.
Could it be that the continents fitted together in a sort of puzzle of their own?
- Many of the pieces of this puzzle were missing
having been eroded over millions of years.
But, Alfred realised this particular puzzle had legacy written all over it,
and set out to prove that their interlocking shapes
weren't a coincidence.
- He started by looking at rocks,
and realised that the rocks on the east coast of South America,
were, in many places, identical to the rocks on the west coast of Africa.
An encouraging bit of evidence.
But, rocks alone weren't solid enough.
So next, Alfred studied the fossil record.
-There was evidence of the exact same species of dinosaur
living on separate continents vast oceans apart.
He found fossils of the lystrosaurus in Africa, Antarctica, and...
...here in India.
- It was thunderingly unlikely that this unique Triassic animal
could have evolved on three separate occasions.
The more logical explanation was that these landmasses
- must once have been connected. - Thunderingly?
- Using his new theory called Continental Drift--
--or Kontinentalverschiebung for long--
Wegener mapped exactly how the continents fitted together millions of years ago.
- He called this supercontinent "Pangaea",
- Greek for "all the earth".
- The theory went thus.
North and South America were once attached to modern day Africa,
but they broke apart, forming the Atlantic Ocean.
- And India was once attached to Antarctica,
but it broke off and smashed into Asia with such force,
it made the Himalayan mountain range.
Everyone else at the time roundly disagreed with him,
as "at the time" people always do.
He froze to death in Greenland before anyone took his stupid theory seriously.
- But, years later while he was still dead,
scientists happened upon something that proved Alfred was right.
They discovered how continents were able to move --
-- something Alfred had never bothered to work out.
They found that convection currents in the mantle,
or hot bit beneath the earth's crust,
slowly drive landmasses apart then back together again,
over cycles of about 500 million years.
- This meant that Pangea, far from being the original Supercontinent,
was actually the 11th to have formed in earth's history.
- So, if the continents are still moving-- which they are--
- the obvious and exciting question becomes - When are the dinosaurs coming back?
- Where are the continents going next?
- The best way of understanding where we might end up,
is to take a good look at which way
the convection currents are currently flowing all under the world.
- And where better to start than the most tectonically active place on the planet?
The Australia plate has, as you can see,
moved northwards a massive 3.5 metres in the last fifty years.
At 7cm a year, this makes it the fastest moving tectonic plate on earth.
- Oof!
This movement is actually causing chaos on GPS systems here in Australia.
The data points still used today were fixed way back in 1994,
when the country was a full 1.8 metres further south west than it is now,
which can be the difference between the right lane, and the pavement.
[crash]
- The effects of Australia's movement are already being felt across fiery Indonesia,
where the subduction of the Australia plate under the Sunda plate,
has forged some of the most active volcanoes in the world.
like Mount Merapi, which some of the best people in the world are known to have climbed.
Oop... sorry.
As Australia continues north,
it's expected to make a handbrake turn to the left,
as it gobbles up Papua New Guinea,
before absolutely smashing into China.
So Beijing, and Shanghai, may find themselves 8,000 metres up,
on top of a new mountain range as big as the Himalayas.
- Meanwhile in the Western Hemisphere,
the Nubian and Somali plates will split apart along the East African Rift Valley,
a process which has already begun
as demonstrated by this massive crack which appeared in Kenya, in 2018.
Over the next few million years, we can expect a new sea to appear here.
The big bit of Africa, will continue to head north towards Europe,
so get ready for the Alps to get bigger,
and the Mediterranean to disappear.
- Somewhere between 100-200 million years from now, and yes that really is
the kind of margin for error we're dealing with,
Antarctica will slowly make its way to join the big collision party,
alongside Australia and south east Asia,
- leaving only the Americas, which are travelling in a westerly direction,
widening the Atlantic, and shrinking the Pacific into nonexistence.
You can see North America here, nicely spooning Australia,
with South America cosying up to now tropical Antarctica,
finishing off our big continental group hug.
- Aw, isn't that nice?
Scientists call this future supercontinent, "Novopangaea".
- Latin and Greek for "new all the earth".
- Imagine that, one happy connected island with no oceans to divide us.
But how sure can we be that this is exactly how
- it's going to pan out? - Positively unsure.
Even with all the data and powerful computer modelling in the world,
there's a decent chance the experts have got it wrong.
- Novopangea, is merely what would happen if the convection currents in the mantle
carry on exactly as they are and don't change.
But some really radical scientists
have come up with some different models for how the world could look.
- First, there's Aurica. . . or, Ow-rica?
Where Eurasia splits in half and both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans close up.
Then, there's Pangaea Ultima,
the name which sounds most like a terrible Bond film,
where Britain gets closer to America!
- And finally there's Amasia,
where all the continents congregate around the north pole
except Antarctica, who--no matter what the model is
is always the laziest continent.
Watching the world's landmasses slowly cycle around the globe
as millions of years tick by, is a nice reminder of our own
utterly insignificant place within the universe.
- Which is why we recommend sharing this video
with any self-important friends you may have, as a way of reminding them
how crushingly unimportant they really are.
- Of course, wondering where countries will be in 250 million years,
assumes countries, and even humans, will last that long.
Right now, it seems the chances of us surviving
more than a few metres of continental drift are incredibly unlikely,
as we grapple with overpopulation, climate change, pandemics,
wars, pollution, and mass extinction.
- But if we do somehow survive and find ourselves living side by side on a supercontinent
packed with double-landlocked countries
we're at least going to have to figure out how to be nicer to one another,
and extend the olive branch of human friendship.
- So, fancy a pint?
- I'm not really thirsty.
- Oh good, it's time for my favourite part of Map Men;
the silly advert at the end.
- Hello everyone. There's no advert this week.
- What?. . . Why?
- Because, this time, we want to tell you about a new thing
- Mark and I have been working on. - Okay. . .
- Mark and I have got a new spin-off show on Stereo.
- But it's NOT an advert?
- Stereo is a free app, that livestreams audio conversations between two people,
and lets you interact and leave voice comments.
Once you've designed your avatar,
you can listen to conversations from all across the world,
and swipe to try a new chat at any time.
Start your own broadcast,
either by linking up with someone you know,
or Stereo will link you up with another random user.
- So, it's like a more interactive version of live radio,
as well as the perfect place to meet your future soulmate?
- And, it's the perfect place to get more Map Men.
We've done two shows already,
with Mark and me having our first ever non-scripted conversation.
Stick around for a snippet from our broadcast at the end of this video.
- Well, I have always wanted to see what the Map Men are really like.
How do I listen?
- Download the free Stereo app onto your smartphone,
then, on Monday, 15th February, just before 6:30pm UK time,
click the link in the description below to join the show.
- But, it's Thursday, 24th of January, 2086!
- If you missed the live show,
we've put a link in the description below, where you can catch up and listen again.
- Good. It'll be nice to relive the old days,
when Mark and Jay were still alive.
- So, download Stereo now and join the massive worldwide conversation.
- I will. But I wish you could have done an advert,
rather than just telling me about it.
[Jay] You and I sort of look, when it comes to cartoons and distinguishing features,
and, you know, descriptions you'd give to the police,
we look more or less the same.
[Mark] Except you haven't got a massive nose. Right. Next comment...
- "Why does Mark's avatar look identical to him? Like, it's literally a splitting image..."
[Mark] That's interesting, isn't it? - "But Jay, yours looks nothing like you."
[Jay] Well, even though you've got a halo and a monocle--which aren't there in real life,
the actual shape of your face and the shape of your hair,
they've actually nailed you!
[Jay] They've, you know, it's a really... [Mark] They?!
I was the one who spent the time picking the correct features, Jay.