The continents are moving. When will they collide? - Jean-Baptiste P. Koehl

Dig into the science of plate tectonics to find out when the next supercontinent will emerge- and how it could affect Earth’s environment.
--
In the early 20th century, Alfred Wegener's theory of Continental Drift laid the foundation for our modern theory of plate tectonics. And today we know something even more exciting: Pangea was only the latest in a long lineage of supercontinents, and it won’t be the last. Jean-Baptiste P. Koehl explores when the next supercontinent will emerge - and what it might mean for Earth’s environment.
Lesson by Jean-Baptiste P. Koehl, directed by Iuri Araujo, Província Studio.
Support Our Non-Profit Mission
----------------------------------------------
Support us on Patreon: bit.ly/TEDEdPat...
Check out our merch: bit.ly/TEDEDShop
----------------------------------------------
Connect With Us
----------------------------------------------
Sign up for our newsletter: bit.ly/TEDEdNew...
Follow us on Facebook: bit.ly/TEDEdFac...
Find us on Twitter: bit.ly/TEDEdTwi...
Peep us on Instagram: bit.ly/TEDEdIns...
----------------------------------------------
Keep Learning
----------------------------------------------
View full lesson: ed.ted.com/les...
Dig deeper with additional resources: ed.ted.com/les...
Animator's website: provincia.network
----------------------------------------------
Thank you so much to our patrons for your support! Without you this video would not be possible! Mi Mi, Thomas Rothert, Brian Elieson, Oge O, Weronika Falkowska, Nevin Spoljaric, Sid Chanpuriya, Anoop Varghese, David Yastremski, Noah Webb, Roberto Chena, Oliver Koo, Luke Pisano, Andrea Gordon, Aleksandar Donev, Nicole Klau Ibarra, Jesse Lira, Ezekiel Raui, Petr Vacek, Dennis, Olivia Fu, Kari Teffeau, Cindy Lai, Rajath Durgada Manjunath, Dan Nguyen, Chin Beng Tan, Tom Boman, Karen Warner, Iryna Panasiuk, Aaron Torres, Eric Braun, Sonja Worzewski, Michael Clement, Adam Berry, Ghaith Tarawneh, Nathan Milford, Tomas Beckett, Alice Ice, Eric Berman, Kurt Paolo Sevillano, Jennifer Heald, Megulo Abebe, isolwi, Kate Sem, Ujjwal Dasu, Angel Alberici, Minh Quan Dinh, Sylvain, Terran Gimpel and Talia Sari.

[@jhoncristjumaquio5612]

As a person who live back in Pangea, I hope it really returns as they said. Ahhh the nostalgia

[@chedmirandax]

Greetings from Gondwana

[@vitaminc2161]

@@chedmirandax how do you feel now about the break up? I heard it took million of years until things finally settled down.

[@CanYouPeeInYourAss]

Hello from Laurentia!

[@awesomehpt8938]

Reject multiple continents, return to Pangea.

[@clayel1]

fr

[@stonewolfe2057]

Certified hood classic

[@PerfectlyTrendy44]

Nah, continents fans unite💪🏻💪🏻🥶🗿

[@sharpasacueball]

Join all land masses and let's all have a big free for all paintball deathmatch

[@ace15Nura]

Sure that gonna end well

[@savyaagarwal3368]

As a person who was alive for the past 50 million years, I can confirm this is true.

[@the1stmetalhead]

As a person who's from the future I can tell that another supercontinent forms in the future.

[@SaifKhan-wu4jt]

As a person who has exams this week i don't care

[@phebeleeisme6449]

Thank you for the confirmation

[@Blue_Pumpkin]

😂

[@KrishJain-oe8zz]

@@SaifKhan-wu4jt Boards ? 😂

[@RobertFrackson]

As a tectonic plate, I can confirm this is what really happens

[@stevenaltos8821]

When did you get the name Robert Frackson?

[@TuxedoDogss]

@@stevenaltos8821 the earth fractured into plates so he made that his last name, and he just felt like a robert

[@stevenaltos8821]

@@TuxedoDogss Ahhhh, of course. Thanks for clearing that up.

[@omega-xk4gj]

Bold of you to assume humans will exist after 50 million years

[@DendrocnideMoroides]

they could, if we survive a few hundred more years I think we will survive 50 million years or much more

[@thomasphilip2892]

Well, dinosaurs survived to more than 200 million years...

[@outlaw9631]

@@thomasphilip2892 dinosaurs weren't trying to self destruct

[@--julian_]

​@@thomasphilip2892 they didn't have nukes tho

[@christurner6330]

@@thomasphilip2892 they didn't polute the atmosphere and deplete the natural resources of the planet at a more rapid rate than it could generate

[@hemantaroy2310]

If only we could all be there to experience it all

[@the1stmetalhead]

I was disappointed to hear that it will take place after 50 million years. 🥲

[@zenith7423]

@@the1stmetalhead It atleast saves you the earthquakes

[@ROSEJANEMONDILLA]

Wtf 🤣 wanna experience earthquakes /tsunamis/etc.?😂 At least you won't experience that nightmare

[@anotherordinaryguy4992]

Ted ed is truly the best teaching channels out here in KZbin.

[@kainingyao7873]

It'd be really cool to see a sci-fi story about the far future in which the Earth's continents have inevitably merged together.

[@wl9275]

No more naval wars, just artillery and tanks

[@GROWITHMUSIC]

Super interesting, as always TED-Ed. Thanks! I think in less than 50 million years we would already be exploring space.

[@MoonlightSoundtrack]

I don't think we are far from that, maybe it could happen much sooner than that.

[@eee_eee]

100 years later we might be building a mars house, not even as long as 5 million years

[@RicardoMartinez-mw2so]

@@eee_eee more than just a mars house. we would have hopefully built numerous bases/colonies throughout the solar system, providing us with a stepping stone to allow us in the following millenia to possibly expand our presence beyond the solar system.

[@SANJAYsubbarao]

I LIKE THE WAY HOW HUMANS ARE SO CONCERNED ABOUT ISSUES THAT ARE GONNA HAPPEN IN MILLIONS OF YEARS BUT THE CURRENT PROBLEMS.

[@dhv1530]

Yeah.. sad right 😢

[@halogen92r-]

With such a dynamic planet as ours, it very easy for evidence of past civilisations to turn to dust

[@J.5.M.]

Past civilizations were thousands of years ago whereas pangaea was many millions of years ago. So not possible for continental drift to have erased signs if past civilizations. Unless you think Neanderthals had, reading, writing and philosophy 😄

[@JamesBond-uz4lc]

@@J.5.M. i think he's talking about civilizations that existed before continental drifts and before pangaea, like, REALLY ancient civilizations

[@halogen92r-]

@@JamesBond-uz4lc Exactly, they have even been reports of finding human made objects that are so old, they predate even the earliest civilisation

[@halogen92r-]

@@J.5.M. even if they had, I don't think we'll ever know😅

[@md0md1]

This channel is amazing.

[@yellowstarproductions6743]

I agree

[@soul_whatsoul]

well said mah friend

[@anishaditya4400]

A few days ago i was talking about this exact method of somehow sending back the carbon and storing them under ground as rock or carbon solids. We have invented enough machines to produce greenhouse gasses in all different ways but still stuck with trees to have them disposed. So, we might have to find ways to get the carbon in the atmosphere to be stored as carbon rich rocks under ground putting them back where they belong.

[@FinancialShinanigan]

Hopefully more land is created so I can finally buy a house lol

[@the1stmetalhead]

Lol, with the tectonic shift and cyclones and earthquakes taking place. I don't think it would be wise to purchase a new property.

[@junekafaltiya4514]

The fact I ethnically belong to Himalayas and live there and the fact we have been getting warning that a earthquake due to tectonic plates movements larger than that of Turkey can hit us anytime soon... and this video came I my recommendation.

[@dreixdreix3800]

New Continent: I 'm here Mass Destruction: Ohh, Hello there!

[@perfectlessness]

Alligning with myself is the movement I'm intrested in! That actually has more effect on my life than the moving continents IMHO.

[@margaretjohnson919]

This is a fabulous presentation! Thank you!! YOu have just enough intrigue woven through it to peak my students' interest without freaking them out.

[@syrup-]

Came here for education, left with an existential crisis

[@yowlolstfu6759]

*50 million years to come up with a solution* Cameraman: Time is but an idea.

[@Shyndree]

Wegener wasn't the first by far to propose this theory, he just put it into the most comprehensive academic paper of it's time. He also pointed out in his paper that several others have pointed out the similar shapes of coastlines before, even as far back as 1596! Wegener mostly wasn't taken seriously because he couldn't produce concrete proof, or at least a provable mechanism for continental drift, and he was basically just speculating. He was right in the end, but others at the time were also right to point out that correlation doesn't equal causation. The real difference was made by Arthur Holmes who actually proposed the mantle convection we understand today to cause plate tectonics. It still wasn't proven until about the 60s, but he was pretty close to what actually happens. If anything, this shows that just because you have a good idea, it doesn't mean you can convince others without objective evidence. Wegener's speculation was totally off about the amount of drift as well, he speculated it was 250cm/year, when it's closer to 2.5cm/year. But people not just trusting it is a good thing, because then someone else proposed something much more accurate and better thought out, so it's always good to reject theories that aren't good enough yet, and accept them when they are actually proven. There is no sense though in questioning already proven theories given all the scrutiny they had to go through! It's not like you will suddenly be more clever than hundreds of experts before you who took a lot of time trying to disprove it.

[@mrx4022]

As someone who lived on the supercontinent named Vaalbara in the Eoarchean era, I can indeed confirm that this is true

[@t3li5]

Today is my birthday. Maybe I could get a heart from Ted-Ed?

[@bhargabkakati1197]

Its funny how humans are so preoccupied with their cultures and countries when it is so certain that all of it will come to an end so very soon. i used to believe that i was immune to existential crisis but today, after watching this video, i don't really know what the point to existing is. Our world is so temporary. It scares me.

[@abaker4692]

Jesus.

[@juliz2500]

Oh then I doubt you want to learn about climate change...

[@mnm1273]

Life has existed for 27% of the time since the Big Bang. We are part of a long song that's not negligeable even on huge scales. Although I do agree that without religion nihilism does make a lot of sense. God shouldn't be killed off lightly.

[@Laurelin70]

Changes of our eaarth are very slow. And human cultures on the contrary can change very fast, so they can adapt to the slowly colliding and separating continents, don't be afraid. The problems for our civilizations are not the plates moving, are the much more faster changes we are causing to our environment.

[@Dez083]

These changes occur over hundreds of thousands if not millions of years I'm pretty sure humans have plenty of time to adapt to the changes of the Earth

[@asankajayaweera7212]

I am really excited to be a member of Pangea.

[@gutlu8311]

Is there a way to collect the the energy release during an earthquake?...I mean if we could redirect that force into a different channel maybe we'll be able to reduce the destruction.

[@apple_m2_delight]

this is what minimalist animation should be

[@asterisk_fr]

Exactly!!!

[@hassanjawaid]

at least people will come closer

[@midimusicforever]

Relevant with recent events.

[@FutureCommentary1]

50 to 250 million years from now? Oh great, I can't wait!

[@Student-gi4lb]

God really created this world as a fascinating universe 🤗❤️

[@terrafirma5327]

Wegner was not the first to notice the continents looked like they fit together. He was however the first to pursue lines of evidence to show its more than just a curiosity. Despite all the evidence he found he was still doubted by other scientists and condemned by creationists. Despite evidence showing the same fossil species on different continents that could not cross the ocean, and geologic features that lined up, it took a long time for it to be accepted.

[@kmh4076]

It took me back to the time of traveling by foot anywhere on Pangea when I wasn’t alive 😮

[@arun279]

people fighting over artificial borders seems pointless when you look at it from a large enough timescale like this

[@mnm1273]

Humans are meaningless if you go to larger scales. Just mean human choices are unimportant.

[@the1stmetalhead]

Most people are not capable of long term thinking, that's why a lot of times they make impulse decisions and choices.

[@shiba18inu]

When I watch these kinda videos, it makes me realise that I should YOLO more.

[@TundeEszlari]

Sensational video.

[@osheridan]

As someone who lives on a continent, I can confirm this would affect me if it affected me

[@revnbertva1020]

In my humble opinion, like it was in the beginning and as our ancestors began to migrate into the various areas gave us our changed appearance.

[@natalieeuley1734]

We can pretty reliably predict that the following will happen: -Australia will move up towards Asia -South America will move towards North America -Europe will move down towards Africa -Asia will move east toward North America This is, obviously, definitely the beginning of a super continent. The real question is about Antarctica. Antarctica is basically moving away at all the plate boundaries right now. What it will crash into will determine when the next super continent happens

[@Samrtfirdeg]

You know I never understood Europe and Asia being two different continents

[@ideeAMxCC]

Bro what?! 50 million years for a solution? Damnn, can’t wait for the human species that will _totally_ live that long

[@vipahman]

As an American, I can't wait for the new super continent to arrive so that all humanity can migrate to the USA without crossing water.

[@ugoeze7360]

50 to 250 million years from now may sound like a huge gap of uncertainty, but it sounds like a huge gap of uncertainty. That is because by then, humans will have evolved to develop superpowers to freeze plate tectonics in place. Trust me bro, I dream about the future.

[@tiffanymarie9750]

I don't understand how anyone can refer to our descendants millions of years in the future as "we". Whatever species evolve from us, if any, might not have the same priorities. We don't even have any idea if civilization can outlive the species that started it...after all ours is barely 12k years old, a tiny fraction of our own species existence.

[@mayedalmansoori5372]

I love learning info about big and long balls

[@idol_wannabe]

México near Japan, China & Korea, woah!!!

[@circuloviciosamente]

Make Pangea great again!

[@RichardHannay]

I hope the new supercontinent happens soon. I want to visit Europe by land bridge.

[@mister_r447]

Oh boy i can't wait for Pangea 2, 50-250 million years aren't passing fast enough!!!

[@TMNWG]

It's a cool video, but it kinda irks me how at ~48 it shows what looks to be India heading for Asia, but it ends up as south-east Asia, while India itself seems to just sprout out from nowhere.

[@harrisonshone7769]

Earths continents HAVE remained steady for millennia. They’ve just moved over much longer time periods.

[@tudorjason]

I was under the impression that because of the Mid Atlantic Ridge, causing the widening of the Atlantic Ocean, will eventually lead Asia and the Americas to come closer.

[@katherineroddy4832]

I SWEAR THERE IS A KZbin SPY IN MY ROOM AT SCHOOL WE ARE LEARNING ABOUT THE SAME THING and i havent ever searched this

[@Zeel_BTS]

Wanting humanity to exist for another 500 million years is crazy

[@alihancaliskan4683]

“Now you see the mountains, thinking they are firmly fixed, but they are travelling ˹just˺ like clouds. ˹That is˺ the design of Allah, Who has perfected everything. Surely He is All-Aware of what you do.” (Surah An-Naml: 88) If we focus on the verse, we can see that Allah says that our first thought would make us believe that mountains are fixed, and then we’ll see that they are passing away as the passing of clouds. And it has been so exactly because only in the 19th century, we came to know that mountains could drift so could the continents.

[@FedJimSmith]

if humans (and therfore some politicians) lived long enough to experience such fusing of continents, it is intriguing what the dynamic of power will turn out to be

[@ideeAMxCC]

As a person who was born in the multiple contents era, I can’t confirm this is true

[@hinkles73]

i learned about Wegener today and every scientist called him a crazy little man, so he went up to Greenland to prove it, only he froze to death. At least he tried tho...

[@arturorochoa9359]

Gondwanaland sounds cool

[@simranmalhotra7364]

It's borderline hysterical for us as humans to assume that we would be alive 50 million years later given the kind of damage we're doing to the Earth at present....

[@dogeclanleader1]

Can it be done before dinner

[@Erazon]

It's like Earth resets it self

[@OunegNebty]

50 millions years to come up with a solution ? That's too short for us.

[@ThePawcios]

Mantle is not made of partially molten rocks... it is rather solid :P Edit: with exception of thin layer called asthenosfere FIY ;)

[@kavyajha4]

Heard of asthenosphere

[@ThePawcios]

@@kavyajha4 yep but does this video mention asthenosfere? Asthenosfere is thin layer under lithosfere. From the image they show you can understand all mantle is partially molten which is incorrect :P

[@--julian_]

​@Kavya Jha the asthenosphere is mostly solid too

[@Laurelin70]

@@--julian_ Yes but it is LOCALLY molten, and that's enough.

[@--julian_]

@@Laurelin70 it is not enough. saying partially molten is misleading because it implies that a big portion of it is molten, which is not. especially because most people think that the mantle is actually molten.

[@michaelrae9599]

Why would the Atlantic close up? My guess is that East Coast of Asia and the West Coast of North America come together. Right now, the Americas are being pushed away from the West Coast of Africa and Europe.

[@dinobay9597]

Pangea is back

[@ppp-ppp-ppp]

hi

[@powerfulmath1914]

Big fan of you. Inspired by you I have also opened my youtube channel. I don't know if it will work or not but you inspire me to do the hardwork and just don't think about the result ❤

[@bottasheimfe5750]

oooh that idea of storing CO2 in Basalt might be handy later. imagine shipping millions of tons of rocks containing Carbon Dioxide to Mars to build up its atmosphere? or doing the same high in the Venusian atmosphere to gradually decrease the atmospheric Pressure on Venus.

[@Seryung01]

50 million years? i hope we achieve type 1 civilization 👌

[@1abystander]

How are the melting ice caps affecting the process of the tatonic plates?

[@rustyboi5402]

cant wait

[@Studio-A.nimation]

with my spirt animal being rodinia i can confirm that you guys got it right

[@kakungcu]

Moving continent

[@ongxuannguyenongxuan920]

I love you video

[@nicholasfly5914]

So, in a nutshell, we just need to use a load of pipes to save our continents' placement.

[@clawmachinez26]

What if right now we’re laying the groundwork in research for these underground pipes and future city planners are looking at this research as archaic but crucial to protecting their society from shifting continents?

[@noelposson2344]

Minute 3:00… closing of the “Atlantic?” Not the “Pacific?”

[@dakshraj4969]

Please make video on c4 pathway photorespiration

[@logicalatheist]

As a pangean passport holder I confirm this to be true.

[@priyanshsuthar519]

The Global Pizza was cut and distributed to all according to their appetite.

[@seankazmi3129]

Future Pangea is inevitable, however water will overtake many countries during this period and supercontinent will form

[@NavajoNinja]

Wait! The earth isn't flat?

[@Amitbm93]

Now that I know it's going to take 50 million years, I can safely return to my bed without stress.

[@BvSchagen]

People will be so Confused when the find out we were all on big islands

[@kharmr3284]

So the guy from the movie "the man from earth" confirms it.

[@Ulfbercht]

Great! We can store CO2 in the ground so does that mean we can keep on the pulltion?

[@WhiteBloggerBlackSpecs]

Madagascar fits snugly into Mozambique

[@edwardaydnap644]

Hello there

[@sir_albaxious1909]

Think about the borders of countries by then...

[@Thousand.cranes.bonsai]

Lol ... he mentioned our national borders being affected by this in 250,000,000 years. 😆 I predict that we arent going to have any national borders at that time, we'll be fossils below a mile of dirt.

[@shubhambhardwaj8893]

How to make this type of video , means this graphic video. Plz tell me. Which app is use to make this type of videos

[@younlok1081]

This can be made using 2d frame by frame animations which you can use krita or clip paint studio or adobee animate Or motion graphics and key frame editor with either vector art or hand drawn which you can use after effects for it For certain cases you may use both But whatever you use you have to learn animation I recommend 12 principles of animations by Alan becker on youtube

[@antonioforlife]

Lol these theories are interesting. Especially thinking the earth is that old

[@acsgdo02]

We are just dust in the wind passing thru this earth and are fools thinking that we can change what nature has set in motion for bilions of years

[@Some_odd_guy]

I don’t know why but I laughed at „dating local fossils” 🤔

[@madhavarts4418]

we indians already knew this. In our ancient texts its already written and that land mass called as " jambhu island "

[@ballybunion9]

Scientists say the average lifespan of a species is about four million years, so I wouldn't worry too much about 50 million years from now.

[@catinthemask8962]

Imo, If we manage to not drive ourselves extinct with greed and pollution, maybe, juuuuuust maybe, we have a chance at actually seeing this true.

[@deeb3272]

continents had drip

[@Anish_Deshmukh]

Can we name the next supercontinent Ted-edia 🌍

[@apextrypticontitanfall1.049]

Wassup gang