Animated map of how Earth will look in 250 million years

According to plate tectonics theory, Earth's outer shell is divided into multiple plates that slowly glide over the mantle. This slowly changes Earth's surface over time by merging, or separating,continents. Here, we used projections fromChris Scotese—a professor with Northwestern University's Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences — to show how Earth will look in250 million years. Scotese studies how plate tectonics and a warming climate will change Earth's appearance in the future, and he h...