I have always viewed continents in a geological sense and not as arbitrarily evolved ideas of countries, nation states, and borders. I suppose it helps me avoid getting ensnared in silly debates. Taking a cosmic view of everything is a great escape for me at one level but, more importantly, it is always how I have thought about existence.
With this as the backdrop let us talk about what is obsessing India currently—the Lakshadweep-Maldives back and forth. The diplomatic spat over the politics of this debate does not interest me at all. However, it did prompt me to again read up on the plate tectonics, the movements of Earth’s crust, over about 200 million years. Not a lot of people may know that what we call the Indian Ocean started forming some 180 million years ago. It was then that a gigantic piece of Earth’s plates or landmass, containing the future Madagascar, Australia, India and Antarctica broke away from the African coast. Some 60 million years after that rupture, which means 120 million years ago, what is now Australia began hiving off Madagascar-India. What is now India split from Madagascar 80 million years ago drifting northwards.
For about 20 million years between 50 and 70 million years ago the drifting Indian plate moved at what geologists say is the highest recorded speeds of up to 16 centimeters a year. For a landmass that giant to move at that speed is astonishing.
Along the way between 67 and 64 million years ago, there was a stupendous eruption of magma that formed the Deccan Traps of India. Known as the “superplume event” that eruption is believed to have been significantly responsible for the last of five mass extinctions. But that is another story.
The rapid plat tectonics of India also created something remarkable. According to a UNESCO assessment of potential World Heritage sites in the Western Indian Ocean, it produced “a unique mid-ocean feature – the volcanic islands and carbonate-topped banks of the western and central Indian Ocean, the Mascarene Plateau.” It was part of these plate tectonics that also led to the formation of the Lakshadweep – Maldives chains between 57 and 60 million years ago.
I regularly read about the geological evolution of Earth because it is primal and at the heart of all existence on this planet. In fact, as part of my fascination for that I had on April 15, 2022, featured Joao Duarte, assistant professor of plate tectonics at the University of Lisbon, in Portugal, who is one of the leading geologists focused on the formation of the next supercontinent.
Earth is halfway through its latest cycle of dispersing and assembling continents made possible by plate tectonics, which is a unique geological feature in our solar system. In fact, a significant reason why there is life on our planet is because of plate tectonics and water.
The seven continents that we see now were some 200 million years ago one giant clumped landmass, a supercontinent known as Pangaea. Geologists are now studying when the next supercontinent might form. Although it could happen between 100 and 200 million years from now, the effects of plate tectonics are felt every day.
If there is any point to this post, it is that so many of you get trapped in trivialities on a planet that so spectacularly awe inspiring.