Amasia (continent)

For other uses, see Amasia.

Amasia is the working title for a possible future supercontinent that could be formed by the merger of Asia and North America. This prediction relies mostly on the fact that the Pacific Plate is already subducting under Eurasia and North America, a process which if continued will eventually cause the Pacific to close. Meanwhile, because of the Atlantic mid-ocean ridge, North America would be pushed westward. Thus, the Atlantic at some point in the future would be larger than the Pacific. In Siberia, the boundary between the Eurasian and North American Plates has been stationary for millions of years. The combination of these factors would cause North America to be combined with Asia, thus forming a supercontinent.

A February 2012 study predicts Amasia will form over the North Pole, in about 50 million to 200 million years.

Roy Livermore, now at the University of Cambridge, in the late 1990s predicted a supercontinent called Novopangea, assuming closure of the Pacific, docking of Australia with eastern Asia, and northward motion of Antarctica. Amasia, Novopangea, and Pangea Proxima are discussed in the book Supercontinent by Ted Nield, and illustrated in "Pangaea, the comeback" in the New Scientist magazine issued 20 October 2007.