Watch ‘unprecedented’ animation showcasing 100 million years of Earth history

Published

2 years ago

March 17, 2023

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New “unprecedented” animations of the Earth show how the planet’s surface has shifted and changed over the past 100 million years.

These animations are the most detailed view of the history of Earth’s topography ever, depicting the rise of mountains, the development of basins, and the transport of large masses of sediments around the globe through erosion.

The animations show the movements of tectonic plates, the large rafts of crust that bump up against each other to form mountain ranges and pull apart to form ocean basins. When these plates dive into the mantle, or Earth’s middle layer, at subduction zones they give rise to planet-shaping volcanoes and earthquakes. But there are other forces shaping the surface, too: Precipitation erodes away the surface, while the rate of weathering alters levels of carbon dioxide in the air, creating a feedback loop that links the land to the atmosphere.

“While the dance of the continents has been studied extensively, we are still limited in our understanding and representation of how the Earth’s surface has evolved,” said Tristan Salles (opens in new tab) , a senior lecturer in geosciences at the University of Sydney and the lead author of a new paper describing the model, which was published March 2 in the journal Science (opens in new tab) .

“What we bring with this new model,” Salles wrote in an email to Live Science, “is a way to evaluate how this surface has changed (globally and over geological time scales) shaped by its interactions with the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the tectonic and mantle dynamics.”

Related: A tiny magma blob may rewrite Earth’s history of plate tectonics

The model begins 100 million years ago in the midst of the breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea, which started to occur around 200 million years ago. In the beginning of the animation, the continents that will become Africa and South America are already recognizable, with the Northern Hemisphere continents coming together tens of millions of years later. Blue shows the flow of water, while red shows the intensity of the deposition of new sediments by erosion.

“This unprecedented high-resolution model of Earth’s recent past will equip geoscientists with a more complete and dynamic understanding of the Earth’s surface,” study co-author Laurent Husson (opens in new tab) , a geologist at the Institute of Earth Sciences (ISTerre) in Grenoble, France, said in a statement (opens in new tab) .

Putting together all of these different pressures on the evolution of Earth, from the movements of the plates to the flow of water to the slow changes in the mantle, provides a new way to ask questions about everything from the regulation of the climate to the ways the circulation of the atmosphere affect erosion on land. Related Stories —Oldest evidence of tectonic plates unearthed, sealed in ancient crystals

—Plate tectonics are 3.6 billion years old, oldest mineral on Earth reveals

—Evidence of ‘modern’ plate tectonics dating to 2.5 billion years ago found in China

The researchers found that the rate of sediment movement across the globe was likely much larger than what scientists believe based on observation, probably because the sedimentary record is fragmented. Overall erosion rates have been fairly steady for the past 100 million years, Salles said, but there have been changes in whether the sediment ends up trapped in low-elevation basins on land or ultimately flows out to sea. For example, there was a doubling of sediment flow to the oceans between about 60 million and 30 million years ago, which was likely associated with the rise of the Himalaya Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau, the researchers wrote.

Such nuances could be important, Salles said. For example, some of the earliest life formed in shallow marine environments, where microorganisms harnessed photosynthesis for the first time and left behind mineralized formations known as stromatolites.

“It is thought that sedimentation flux may have provided a source of nutrients to these early organisms, allowing them to thrive and evolve over time,” Salles said. “We envision that our model could be used to test such long-standing hypotheses regarding the origin of life on Earth.”

World

Trump could meet Putin as early as next week to discuss Ukraine ceasefire – White House official

Published

3 hours ago

August 7, 2025

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Trump could meet Putin as early as next week to discuss Ukraine ceasefire - White House official

Donald Trump could meet Vladimir Putin in person as early as next week to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine, a White House official has said.

They said the meeting would be conditional on the Russian president meeting his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Sky News’s US partner network NBC News reported.

It came days before the White House’s deadline for Russia to reach a peace deal with Ukraine or face severe economic penalties, which could also target countries buying its oil.

Ukraine war latest

Asked during a news conference at the White House if the talks would take place, Mr Trump said: “There’s a very good prospect that they will.”

He said it had not been determined where the talks would take place, but added: “We had some very good talks with President Putin today.”

However, he said: “I’ve been disappointed before with this one.”

Asked if Mr Putin made any kind of concession to lead to the development, Mr Trump did not give much away, but added: “We’ve been working on this a long time. There are thousands of young people dying, mostly soldiers, but also, you know, missiles being hit into Kyiv and other places.”

Trump might finally be a step closer to ending the war

Seven hours is a long time in US politics.

At 10am, Donald Trump accused Russia of posing a threat to America’s national security.

At 5pm, Trump said there was a “good prospect” of him meeting Vladimir Putin “soon”.

There had, he claimed, been “great progress” in talks between his special envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russian president.

It’s difficult to gauge the chances of a meeting between the two leaders without knowing what “great progress” means.

Is Russia “inclined” towards agreeing a ceasefire, as Ukraine’s president now claims?

Is Putin prepared to meet with his Ukrainian foe Volodymyr Zelenskyy, too?

The very fact that we’re asking those questions suggests something shifted on a day when there was no expectation of breakthrough.

Trump repeatedly vowed to end the war within 24 hours of becoming president.

On day 198 of his presidency, he might, just might, be one step closer to achieving that.

More tariffs ‘could happen’

Mr Trump also said he could announce further tariffs on China similar to the 25% he announced on India over its purchases of Russian oil.

“Could happen,” he said, after saying he expected to announce more secondary sanctions intended to pressure Russia into ending its war with Ukraine.

Earlier, he imposed an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods, on top of a previous 25% tariff, over its continued purchases of Russian oil.

India’s foreign ministry spokesperson said the additional tariffs were “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”.

It came after Mr Putin held talks with Mr Trump‘s special envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow, with the meeting lasting around three hours.

In a post on Truth Social, Mr Trump said Mr Witkoff “had a highly productive meeting” with Mr Putin in which “great progress was made”.

He said he had updated America’s European allies, and they will work towards an end to the Russia-Ukraine war “in the days and weeks to come”.

‘The war must end’

Mr Zelenskyy later said he and Mr Trump spoke on the phone after the meeting. He said “European leaders also participated in the conversation” and “we discussed what was said in Moscow”.

He added: “Our common position with our partners is absolutely clear: The war must end. We all need lasting and reliable peace. Russia must end the war that it started.”

Mr Zelenskyy later said: “It seems that Russia is now more inclined to agree to a ceasefire.”

He added that the pressure on Moscow “is working”, without elaborating, and stressed it was important to make sure Russia does not “deceive us or the United States” when it comes to “the details” of a potential agreement.

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