A new model shows how the Earth has changed in 100 million years

Here you can see 100 million years of Earth’s history – in 21 seconds.
The University of Sydney has released a new model of the Earth’s surface. The picture of how geophysical landscapes form today is shown at greater resolution than ever before. The visualization also shows how millions of tons of sediment were transported into the oceans.
Something small: sediment They occur, for example, when rocks are weathered, carried away by water and deposited again elsewhere. Throughout Earth’s history, they have helped shape our planet.

Back to the model: Until now, all geological models have provided only a fragmentary understanding of our planet’s most recent physical features, he says. Dr. Tristan Saleslead author of the study.

So his research team introduced a dynamic model. Changes in the Earth’s surface over the past 100 million years can be tracked with an accuracy of up to 10 kilometres.

What is remarkable is that the movement of sediments from the land into the oceans can be tracked better than ever before.

Weathering and erosion processes—a prerequisite for sediments—are highlighted in blue. Deposits are highlighted in red.

The model aims to give scientists a better understanding of how the Earth’s surface responds to climate change and tectonic forces:

“Given that ocean chemistry is rapidly changing due to human-induced climate change, a more complete picture could aid in understanding the marine environment. In addition, the research provides an improved model for understanding how terrestrial sediment transport affects carbon. The ocean planetary cycle is regulated over a period of Millions of years.” – Dr. Laurent Huson, Grenoble Institute of Geosciences

Incidentally, over the past 100 million years, visualization covers only a fraction of Earth’s history. The approximate age of our planet is 4.6 billion years.

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