Land on the Run

Big Picture Science

Hang on to your globe. One day it’ll be a collector’s item. The arrangement of continents you see today is not what it once was, nor what it will be tomorrow. Thank plate tectonics.

Now evidence suggests that the crowding together of all major land masses into one supercontinent – Pangaea, as it’s called – is a phenomenon that’s happened over and over during Earth’s history. And it will happen again. Meet our future supercontinent home, Amasia, and learn what it will look like.

Meanwhile, as California waits for the Big One, geologists discover that major earthquakes come in clusters. Also, our planet is not the only solar system body with tectonic activity. Icy Europa is a mover and shaker too.

And why is land in the western part of the U.S. literally rising up? Mystery solved!

Guests:

• John Dvorak – Geologist, author of Earthquake Storms: The Fascinating History and Volatile Future of the San Andreas Fault
• Adrian Borsa – Geophysicist, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
• Ross Mitchell – Geologist and post-doctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology
• Simon Kattenhorn – Structural geologist and a planetary geologist who did his work on Europa while at the University of Idaho

First released September 29, 2014

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