Pangaea Ultima, a new supercontinent to form in the future, is expected to cause a potential mass extinction event that will wipe out most living organisms on Earth, including humans.
According to scientists, the geological event will take place 250 million years after the planet's land masses or continents, including the Americas, Africa, Antarctica, and Australia, piece together again.
Climate projections in the future continent estimates that temperatures will be extremely hot, mainly due to the massive chunk of terrestrial environment and other factors. Because of this, humans will potentially have a low survival rate, according to experts. However, the collision of Earth's continents will not happen overnight, since shifting tectonic plates move slowly each year.
Pangaea Ultima
(Photo : Photo by Ferhat Deniz Fors on Unsplash)
In a 2023 study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers found that the new supercontinent, Pangaea Ultima, will result in the extinction of up to 92% species on Earth as the majority of the planet could be inhabitable, especially for mammals. The future landmass could be dominated by volcanoes and an extremely hot environment, based on future models.
The research paper highlights that mammals have dominated Earth for approximately 55 million years, for reasons including their adaptations to warming and cooling events during the Cenozoic. It added that while all life will eventually perish due to solar radiation several billion of years from now, Earth could become inhospitable for our mammal descendants sooner than previously thought.
The emerging Pangaea Ultima is set to form along the equator and drastically change the global ecosystem, but evidence shows that the supercontinent will not kill all life. However, it can be uninhabitable for mammals. Earth witnessed its last supercontinent, called Pangaea, which broke apart about 200 million years ago and its fragments became the continents that we know today.
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Will Earth Become Extinct?
There are various 'projected' scenarios of how life on Earth could become extinct in the future, ranging from asteroid strikes to floodings due to sea level rise. Whether mass extinction events are caused by natural or anthropogenic factors, it is clear that climate change driven by human-induced greenhouse gas emissions is taking its toll on the environment, according to the study.
Now, evidence suggests that mammals could be the first victims of rising temperatures, especially in Pangaea Ultima. Citing previous research, the international scientists involved in the study suggest that even before the formation of Pangaea Ultima itself, current global warming could increase temperatures beyond terrestrial mammalian physiological limits.
Other scientific literature and reports from experts in recent years have also shown that other animal classes or groups are at risk from the global temperature rise. According to the United Nations, every degree of warming is also increasing the risk of species extinction, in the context of climate change. While the future supercontinent of Pangaea Ultima is not related to climate change, it is clear that global warming is deadly for animals, especially mammals.
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