Pangea Ultima

1. This is an explanation of the previous map:

Is this what will become of the Earth’s surface? The surface of the Earth is broken up into several large plates that are slowly shifting. About 250 million years ago, the plates on which the present-day continents rest were positioned quite differently, so that all the landmasses were clustered together in one supercontinent now dubbed Pangea. About 250 million years from now, the plates are again projected to reposition themselves so that a single landmass dominates: Pangea Ultima. At that time, the Atlantic Ocean will be just a distant memory, and whatever beings inhabit Earth will be able to walk from North America to Africa. [1]

2. I personally like very much that shape of the Earth, which incidentally is very similar to that of the first Pangea, which formed 300- 350 million years ago. I like this moon crescent shape, engulfing a vast internal ocean, which might contain an archipelago of islands, the biggest of which I would like to call Atlantis.

3. But where are all the people? I can see forests with enormously tall trees, long rivers and big lakes, and all sorts of animals. I can even see dinosaurs. Am I back in the Carboniferous period, at the time of the old Pangea, or is it something else going on?

4. I take myself to that big island (Atlantis) in the middle of the internal sea (Mare Internum). There I can see tall buildings, people and vehicles moving around. I estimate a population of about 2-3 million in that megacity, but no more. So where are the rest of the people?

5. After so many years of overpopulation and overexploitation of the planet, it was decided that humanity should evacuate the planet in order to save it. This took place about a couple of hundred thousand years after our common era. It took us such a long time (200,000- 300,000 years) to be able to leave our home planet because great disasters and wars took place in the meantime. Finally we managed not to self- destruct and to concentrate all our efforts as mankind in order to make the necessary technology available.

6. We finally decided to settle in the star system of Kepler 452, at a distance of about 1,400ly, since it is the closest Earth analog (Kepler 452b is a bit larger than the Earth, in the habitable zone of its host star), and also the closest Solar analog (Kepler 452 has exactly the same spectral type with our Sun). [2]

7. After we  left the Earth, many discoveries and advancements in technology have been made, one of which was to clone dinosaurs, which were released back on the Earth, which since then has become a nature reserve.

8. A million years have already passed since we settled on Kepler 252, but technology has advanced so much that we can regularly suspend our lives and functions for great periods of time (up to tens of thousands of years).

9. Of course Pangea Ultima is not our only terraforming technological achievement, but it is a special case, since it is still our old home planet (the Earth). Therefore regularly vacation tours as well as scientific expeditions are organized to Earth, but the number of people permitted is kept to a minimum for environmental purposes.

10. Incidentally Atlantis, the main archipelago island in the internal sea, is an artificial island, which was originally built for scientific research. This is an island never meant to be sunk, as its natural predecessor did. In fact it doesn’t even exist!

[1]: [https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap001002.html]
[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_potentially_habitable_exoplanets]

7/30/2019

Image: Pangea Ultima: Earth in 250 Million Years?

[https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap001002.html]