Quite alarming too is the suggestion that the Indian Subcontinent is breaking up into two parts, with the Himalayas probably saying goodbye to the rest of the Indian mainland. The push and pulls between the Indian plate and the Eurasian plate is said to be changing the geophysical dynamics of the subcontinent…
By Salam Rajesh
Consider these: New Zealand was once upon a time a large continent with huge land mass, or that Africa is steadily splitting up into two continents, or that the Indian Subcontinent is breaking up into two parts! As unimaginative as it sounds in a lifetime, scientists around the world are reporting on these things happening actually in real time!!
Science is dynamic, and new things and theories continue to evolve through time. Species type and name change with new findings, and species thought to be native turns out to be invasive after all – imported from a far-away place in time years back and now forgotten, and species thought to be extinct (declared extinct actually) springing back to life all of a sudden.
The current deliberation on the three planetary crises—that is, global warming, climate change, and extreme weather events—is interestingly being mixed up with the issue of species loss, which is largely influenced by negative anthropogenic activities and compounded by natural changes over time.
The big concern on the rapidly changing phenomena of global temperature with an emphasis on the weather extremities beyond human tolerance, is slowly yet steadily raising the more concerning worry on people losing their homes forever due to sea level rise or the earth cracking up right underneath their homes.
It is far from one’s imagination to understand that the small island nation of New Zealand was once a large land mass, owning its own continental identity, the majority of which gradually was covered up by water in millennia. The diversity and population dynamics would have been quite different then.
The tremors within Earth’s crust, and inner core, is reportedly what is causing to give rise to the great African split in a future time – giving the world two African continents, West and East Africa! That sounds fascinating yet reshaping the demographic and geophysical structure of present-day Africa, and of the world as a whole with the introduction of a new ocean (or sea) in the process.
A recent IDR newspaper report in January earlier this year indicated that the East African Rift, a colossal crack that stretches thousands of kilometers, is actively splitting the continent into two separate pieces. This remarkable tectonic process is paving the way for the creation of a brand-new ocean, an event that could reshape Africa’s geography, redefine its ecosystems, and rewrite the future of several nations, the report noted.
Quite alarming too is the suggestion that the Indian Subcontinent is breaking up into two parts, with the Himalayas probably saying goodbye to the rest of the Indian mainland. The push and pulls between the Indian plate and the Eurasian plate is said to be changing the geophysical dynamics of the subcontinent, providing theory that as much as Africa is on the verge of splitting into two continents, the Indian mass would probably end up into two mass eventually, perhaps physically dividing North India with Central India so much as it is already divided on geopolitical terms.
A ground breaking study presented recently at the American Geophysical Union Conference suggested the theory that a portion of the Indian Plate is ‘delaminating’ as it slides beneath the Eurasian Plate, with the denser lower section peeling away from the upper portion. Furthermore, evidence pointed to a vertical fracture or tear at the boundary between the separated section of the slab and its undisturbed neighbor, the study noted.
Equally remarkable and intriguing is a recent report of geological finding by researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, wherein scientists are reported to have discovered that the underside of the North American continent is slowly dripping away in blobs of rock!
The phenomenon, known as ‘cratonic thinning’, is being attributed to the remnants of the Farallon Plate, a tectonic plate that has been sinking into the Earth’s mantle for millions of years, the study published in Nature Geoscience said, revealing that the process is currently underway beneath the Midwest region of the United States. So, basically, it means portion of America is going to disappear forever underneath the waters in a future time.
While part of America is sinking, on the other side of the globe, Bangladesh in South Asia faces destructive storm tides that scientists are predicting likely to increase 10 times more powerful in response to climate change, a new study published in the journal One Earth warned.
A storm tide is defined as high water level caused by the combination of a normal astronomical tide and a storm surge, that is, abnormal rise in sea level due to a tropical cyclone. The destructive storm tides, that occurred once in every 100 years, is likely to become more frequent hitting Bangladesh once every decade, according to a report in the environmental journal Down to Earth.
On this observation, Sai Ravela, principal research scientist in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, says, “Our study shows that under high-emissions scenarios, such extreme storm tides may occur every decade or even more frequently, not because cyclone counts increase dramatically, but because stronger storms and higher seas amplify flood impacts”.
Yet again, quite fascinating is the report that glaciers are either ‘dying’ or are declared ‘dead’ due to processes impacted by global warming, and climate change. In 2023, Iceland created the world’s first iceberg graveyard, where ice-like headstones were constructed for 15 major glaciers listed on the Global Glacier Casualty List, all of which are either dead or critically endangered. The list includes the Anderson Glacier in Washington State, which in 2015 became the first glacier in the United States to be declared “dead” officially.
So, in a world twisted and torn by unprecedented wildfires, heat waves, cyclonic storms, droughts, cloudbursts, and much more, things appear to be disappointingly dangerous for people across all sectors worldwide, irrespective of who is rich or poor, whether in developed nations or in the developing countries. None is likely to be spared – that is primary what science is telling us with all these intriguing reports piling up one after the other, nonetheless not happy tidings for humanity.