Atlantic Ocean may want to be swallowed up in ‘Ring of Fire,’ scientists warn

 

The Atlantic Ocean may additionally “soon” be swallowed up by way of a huge chain of colliding tectonic plates that has been ominously dubbed the “Ring of Fire,” scientists warn.

The tectonic plate beneath Africa has been sliding beneath the one under Eurasia for about 30 million years, geologists from the University of Lisbon in Portugal referred to in a current learn about published in the “Geology” journal.

As it continues this downward trend, the so-called Gibraltar Trench — positioned under the 10-mile-long Gibraltar Strait that separates Spain and Morocco — will make bigger westward, forcing continents to move closer and closer, till the Atlantic Ocean is absolutely gone, the scientists found.

The method might also have even already begun, despite different scientists’ claims that the trench is inactive.

“We have exact reason to think that the Atlantic is starting to close,” lead scientist, Professor João Duarte,

He and his colleagues set out to inspect the long-term motion of the Gibraltar Trench, which Duarte referred to as an “invaluable opportunity” to look at how the Africa Plate is moving below the Eurasia Plate “in its early tiers when it is simply happening,” he said in a statement.

The crew created a pc model to music the changes to the trench when you consider that it fashioned in the Oligocene epoch between 34 million to 23 million years ago.

They observed that the plate subduction is now not as dormant as geologists had believed, but has as an alternative just moved at a slow rate of pace over the past 5 million years.

But over the subsequent 20 million years — which they stated is “soon” in geological phrases — the trench should quadruple in size.

It is presently believed to be about a hundred twenty five miles long, but ought to attain up to five hundred miles in length, the scientists said.

The expansion would then set off a chain reaction, forming a new Atlantic subduction quarter called the “Ring of Fire,” like the one that formed in the Pacific Ocean.

As the plates proceed to move, the ocean floor will sink and the continents will be pulled together, the find out about found.

“Oceans appear eternal to our lifespan, but they are not right here for long: they are born, grow and one day close,” the researchers said in a press release saying their findings.

During this time, there may additionally also be extra earthquakes like the one that hit Lisbon in 1775.

The historic quake had an estimated magnitude of 7.7 on the Richter scale and killed nearly 12,000 — nearly destroying the Portuguese capital and its surrounding areas in the process.