Every year, the Pacific Ocean gets a little smaller, and the Atlantic Ocean gets a little bigger.
Even if it is only a difference of a few centimeters, the fact is that the American continent is moving away from Europe and Africa but also closer to Asia.
Even if this geological process is not visible now, it will become more apparent in hundreds of millions of years when the next supercontinents form on Earth.
PLATE TECTONICS: RESPONSIBLE FOR CHANGES IN THE EARTH’S CRUST
Even if we don’t realize it, the Earth constantly changes shape. That is due to the slow but constant shifting of tectonic plates and vast chunks of oceanic and continental crust located in the outermost part of the planet (lithosphere).
The Earth’s crust consists of seven major tectonic plates (African, Antarctic, Eurasian, Indo-Australian, North American, Pacific, and South American).
There are also smaller tectonic plates, such as the Nazca and Cocos plates.
And here’s the important part: the Earth’s metamorphism is determined by what happens at the boundaries between plates.
When these plate boundaries converge, one plate sinks onto the other, causing the crust to disappear.
These places are called subduction zones. On the other hand, if the edges between the plates are divergent, both move away from each other, and new crust or new plates are formed. These are called expansion zones.
The Pacific is shrinking, and the Atlantic is widening because there are more subduction zones in the Pacific and a large expansion zone in the Atlantic known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
This submarine ridge, formed where the North and South American plates collide with the African and Eurasian plates, is 1,500 kilometers wide and extends 16,000 kilometers from southern Iceland to southern Africa.
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is so long that it is twice as long as the Andes, the longest mountain range on the Earth’s surface, estimated at 7,000 kilometers.
It is also so high in elevation that it gives rise to islands such as the Azores (Portugal) or Tristan da Cunha (United Kingdom).
The Pacific Ocean, on the other hand, is surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped chain of subduction zones that extends for 40,000 kilometers and is known as the Pacific Ring of Fire because of the intense seismic and volcanic activity in the areas it surrounds.
According to Australian authorities, the Pacific Ocean shrinks by about two to three centimeters yearly, while the Atlantic Ocean widens by about five centimeters over the same period.
With information from Latina Press