• Question: could the world end if the earths gravitational pull, pulls our tectonic plates together shifting the land masses and allowing the magma in the earths core the find its way out if that happened really their would be no escaping? and also would it be possible for the tectonic plates to fuse together?

    Asked by dj1234568 to Alan, Caspar, Diana, Murray, Sarah on 24 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Diana Drennan

      Diana Drennan answered on 18 Mar 2011:

      Considering that the tectonic plates have been shifting around the entire history of the world, probably not. They shift constantly, and magma comes out from the core frequently (volcanoes !). The shifting is bad for the people (and animals) where the plates meet because of earthquakes and tsunamis, but the world as a whole keeps on going.

      Wikipedia has a real nice description of how all this works….http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics

    • Photo: Alan Winfield

      Alan Winfield answered on 18 Mar 2011:

      Well over geological time the earth’s tectonic plates have moved alot. Around 225 million years ago there was only one giant continent that geologists have named Pangaea. So it seems logical that the process is continuing and sometime in the far far future the continents might come together again. Since it all happens so slowly and over such a long time I don’t think it would mean the end of the world. But this is just my guess – you should head over to the Potassium zone and ask geologist David Pyle.

    • Photo: Caspar Addyman

      Caspar Addyman answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      I think we’ll be fine.
      The tectonic plates are floating on the magma because they are much lighter (much less dense). But because they are floating they can move around. Mostly it happens so very slowly that no-one can see it or feel it but occasionally there is large shift. That is what causes earthquakes.

      Magma sometimes escapes via volcanoes and those can be quite destructive.. especially supervolcanoes (very, very big volcanoes)

    • Photo: Sarah Thomas

      Sarah Thomas answered on 24 Mar 2011:

      If that happened, then i think the earth would be destroyed, but I don’t think it will happen. Gravity just wouldn’t shift all the tectonic plates together like that. However, I think that is a very scientific and clever question dj!

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