Some Future Consequences of Plate Tectonics

Plate tectonics is still an active process, and will drastically reshape the face of the Earth over the next 50 million years or so. A few consequences of plate tectonics based on projections of present motion include:

• Portions of California will separate from the rest of North America.
• The Italian "boot" will disappear.
• Australia will become linked to Asia.
• Africa will separate from the Near East.

As a consequence of plate tectonics (supplemented by wind and water erosion), we live on the surface of a geologically active planet that has obliterated most of its early geological history.