Four possible future worlds

These maps come from published GPlates-derived scenarios by Davies, Green and Duarte. Move through time to compare their different assumptions about ocean closure, rifting and continental assembly.

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These are alternative hypotheses. The live sandbox extrapolates current plate rotations and applies local geological rules; it does not reproduce these complete future reconstructions. The reference maps are independent of the sandbox clock. Where no map exists at the selected date, the nearest published frame is shown with its actual date.

What the checks establish. The initial sandbox and published coastlines have an area-weighted overlap score of — at one-degree resolution, excluding the source’s artificial polar caps. Separate Euler-rotation checks verify opening and convergence directions. Those checks establish geographic alignment and motion conventions; they do not establish predictive accuracy hundreds of millions of years ahead.

The source provides 50 maps across Pangaea Ultima, Novopangaea, Aurica and Amasia. Its bathymetry, continental overlaps and rifts also contain simplifications. Maps are sampled at published time steps, without invented intermediate coastlines. The thin land bands at the poles are artificial boundaries retained from the source tidal grids; they are excluded from the geographic measurements.

Source: Davies, Green & Duarte (2020), Back to the future II: tidal evolution of four supercontinent scenarios. Data: authors’ CC0 deposit. Reference measurements and provenance · All model notes.