The Earth is always moving beneath our feet. What seems permanent, still and solid is in fact constantly creeping. It’s easy to forget that as we race through our busy days, measuring time with digital clocks rather than the achingly slow beat of rock.
In “Evidence falls into place for once and future supercontinents“, contributing correspondent Alexandra Witze explores the long-term motions of the planet’s portable continents. Within this blue dot, Witze reminds us, a swirling cauldron sits below the rocky crust and is now squeezing the Pacific Ocean and expanding the Atlantic. The current configuration of Earth’s landmasses is not what it looked like 2 billion years ago, or even during the time of Pangaea roughly 250 million years ago. It’s also not how the planet’s visage will appear a few hundred million years from now (see this issue’s cover illustration for a spectacular view of the future supercontinent, already named Amasia).