Meet Supercontinent Pangaea

Proxima—in 250 Million Years

Our maps show how Earth's mountains collide and oceans swirl as a new landmass takes
shape.
By Matthew W. Chwastyk

This story appears in the June 2018 issue of National Geographic magazine.

The continents are in constant motion: Tectonic plates crash together and break apart,
creating new crust while old crust is pulled below the surface. The process shrinks and widens
oceans, uplifts mountain ranges, and rearranges landmasses. In about 250 million years a
new supercontinent, Pangaea Proxima, will form.
 London
Paris
ELEVATION
Rome 30,000 9,000
feet meters

Lagos 15,000 4,500

Cairo Moscow

Sea level
New York P A N G A E A
Los Angeles
Chicago
TROPIC OF CANCER P R O X I M A
Possible new Nairobi
highest point
Delhi

Mexico Cape Town Mt. Everest

EQUATOR
City
1,000 mi Tokyo
1,000 km Shanghai PACIFIC
SCALE AT THE EQUATOR
OCEAN

TROPIC OF CAPRICORN

250 MILLION YEARS

Lima
IN THE FUTURE Sydney
Only a vestige of the Atlantic Ocean
remains as landmasses are joined
together into a new super-
continent. New high mountains mark the
sites of massive collisions.

WORLD RESHAPED

NORTH EUROPE ASIA EUROPE

NORTH ASIA
EUROPE AMERICA
AMERICA
AFRICA ASIA
AFRICA SOUTH
SOUTH SOUTH AUSTRALIA AMERICA AUSTRALIA
AMERICA AMERICA
AUSTRALIA ANTARCTICA
ANTARCTICA ANTARCTICA

200 MILLION YEARS AGO
Early dinosaurs roamed
the last supercontinent,
Pangaea, formed by the
collision of older continents.
100 MILLION YEARS AGO
As Pangaea divided into distinct
landmasses, the coasts of today’s
continents began
to emerge, along with the Atlantic
and Indian Oceans.
PRESENT DAY
Today’s landscape is a blip in
geologic time. The Atlantic Ocean
widens by an inch a year as plates
under it spread apart, forming new
crust.
100 MILLION YEARS
IN THE FUTURE
Plate activity along eastern
North America will cause the
Atlantic Ocean to shrink and
continents to converge.