Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Image
Topics: Australia, Climate Change, Science
Callum Jones
Experts have issued an urgent warning as the 'world's fastest' continent is on a collision course with Asia, which could have devastating consequences to Earth as we know it.
Scientists are constantly finding out new things about our planet and wider space, with the 'city-destroying' asteroid taking up the time of many boffins at NASA right now.
A bit closer to home, scientists are starting to become concerned about a natural but also potentially hazardous event that could happen in the future.
Experts have previously discovered that Australia is moving roughly 2.8 inches northwards every single year, which will see it eventually collide with Asia one day.
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The whole process is due to the movement of plate tectonics, with Australia slowly moving North and separating from Antarctica over the years.
The Indo-Australian plate will eventually hit Asia, according to scientists, which could lead to unprecedented changes to Earth.
Not only will the collision create significant climate change, experts have warned a rise in earthquakes, mountain formations, and volcanic activity could occur due to the tectonic movements.
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Professor Zheng-Xiang Li, who looked into the movement back in 2009 with Curtin University, said: "Whether we like it or not the Australian continent is going to collide with Asia.
"Australia is moving northwards 7cms every year, towards Asia. It's very real, that’s the same speed that our fingernails grow each year."
The professor added: "The earth is a living thing, it is always evolving. We believe that the earth evolves in a cyclic pattern, where the continents move apart and now are moving back together.
"When the continents come together, the earth’s crust will form a sort of 'ring of fire' around the new super-continent. Inland, the super-continent will most likely be very dry in the middle, and the climate totally different."
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Thankfully, if the collision is to happen - then it certainly won't be happening in our lifetime.
Scientists predict the geographic event is millions of years away from becoming a reality.
Australia's current rate of movement is enough to impact the country's maps and GPS coordinates today though, despite the tectonic plate that sits underneath it moving minuscule amounts every single year.
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These plates are moved by convection currents that sit deep inside our planet, with pressure from a massive underwater mountain range, aka the Indian Ocean Ridge, causing the plates to move.