Amasia

Amasia
Name	Amasia
Type	Supercontinent hypothesis
Period	Future
Caption	Conceptual reconstruction
First proposed	1990s
Proponents	P. J. C. (plural)

Amasia is a proposed future supercontinent configuration in which the Americas collide with Asia across the Arctic Ocean and Bering Strait region. It is discussed in the context of plate-tectonic reconstructions alongside other proposed futures such as Pangaea Ultima, Novopangaea, and Aurica. The concept appears in geological literature, computational modeling, and popular science commentary addressing long-term plate tectonics and paleogeography.

Etymology and usage

The name combines elements of America and Asia similar to naming conventions used for Pangaea-derived proposals like Pangaea Ultima and Novopangaea. Use of the term appears in publications by researchers affiliated with institutions such as the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Columbia University, University of Chicago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in presentations at meetings of the Geological Society of America and the American Geophysical Union. Journal articles in venues like Nature, Science, Geology (journal), and Earth and Planetary Science Letters have compared Amasia to alternative futures proposed by scientists at University of California, Berkeley, Monash University, Utrecht University, and ETH Zurich. Popular outlets including the BBC, National Geographic, The New York Times, Scientific American, and The Guardian have used the term when describing models by teams from University of Sydney and University of Tokyo.

Geological concept and hypotheses

Amasia is framed within hypotheses about the long-term evolution of plates such as the Pacific Plate, North American Plate, Eurasian Plate, South American Plate, and associated microplates like the Juan de Fuca Plate and Okhotsk Plate. Competing hypotheses involve mechanisms attributed to processes studied by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and USGS scientists. Scenario building often references tectonic features including the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Caribbean Plate, Nazca Plate, Cocos Plate, Aleutian Trench, and Himalayan orogeny as analogues or constraints. Proponents link Amasia-style closure of ocean basins to earlier supercontinent cycles including Rodinia and Gondwana studied by groups at Australian National University and University of California, Santa Barbara.

Formation scenarios and timelines

Proposed timelines span tens to hundreds of millions of years, with some models projecting assembly by ~50–200 million years from present, referencing chronologies familiar from studies of Cretaceous, Jurassic, and Permian tectonics. Scenarios invoke closure of the Arctic Ocean, migration of continental fragments such as Labrador Sea remnants, translation of cratons like the Canadian Shield and Siberian Craton, and interactions involving subduction zones near the Aleutians, Kuril Islands, Kamchatka Peninsula, and Japan. Alternative models cite slab-pull forcings from remnants under regions like Iceland and East Antarctica as influencing timing, with numerical studies conducted by teams at Imperial College London, Caltech, Princeton University, and University of Leeds.

Evidence and modeling

Evidence for Amasia is inferential, derived from plate-motion reconstructions, paleomagnetic data collected at institutions like Uppsala University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Melbourne, and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and geodynamic modeling by research groups at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, ETH Zurich, King's College London, and École Normale Supérieure. Models utilize software and methods developed in labs including GPlates communities, finite-element work from Los Alamos National Laboratory, and mantle convection simulations by teams at Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and French National Centre for Scientific Research. Constraints come from studies of ancient sutures such as the Ural Mountains, Trans-Hudson Orogeny, Tethys Ocean closures, and geochronology from U-Pb laboratories at University of Arizona and University of Wisconsin–Madison. Sensitivity analyses reference datasets curated by NOAA, PANGAEA, and consortia including the International Ocean Discovery Program.

Implications for Earth's future geography

If Amasia or a similar configuration formed, it would reshape coastlines of regions including Greenland, Iceland, Alaska, Kamchatka Peninsula, Siberia, Quebec, Brazil, and Western Europe as studied in scenario planning by groups at NASA, ESA, JAXA, and Roscosmos. Impacts on long-term climate reconstructions draw on analogues from episodes such as the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum and Permian–Triassic extinction event to infer possible shifts studied by researchers at IPCC-affiliated centers, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and NOAA. Ocean circulation changes would be compared to roles played historically by the Labrador Current, Gulf Stream, Kuroshio Current, and gateways like the Bering Strait and Fram Strait. Biodiversity and biogeography implications reference distributions exemplified by Gondwanan and Laurasian lineages documented by museums such as the Smithsonian Institution and Natural History Museum, London.

Cultural and popular reception

Amasia has appeared in documentaries produced by BBC Earth, Discovery Channel, educational content from Smithsonian Channel, and visualizations by studios collaborating with Microsoft Research, Google Arts & Culture, and publishers like Springer Nature and Elsevier. Outreach articles in National Geographic, New Scientist, and Scientific American discuss Amasia alongside artistic renderings by illustrators commissioned by The Atlantic and The New Yorker. Speculative fiction and alternate-history treatments have been used by authors featured in Tor Books and creators associated with BBC Radio 4, while exhibits at institutions like the American Museum of Natural History and Victoria and Albert Museum have showcased reconstructions inspired by these scenarios.

Category:Supercontinents