Asia will not be only the world’s largest continent, but additionally its newest and most structurally complex. Despite the proven fact that the evolution of Asia began almost 4 billion years ago, greater than half of the continent continues to be seismically lively.
The island arc systems surrounding it to the east and southeast are actually producing recent continental material. New landmasses are continually forming in such regions, and occasional collisions of island arcs with land add to the mass of the continent.
Asia can also be home to the world’s largest mountain ranges: the Tibetan Plateau and the encircling Himalayas, the Karakoram Range, the Hindu Kush, the Pamirs, the Kunlun Mountains and the Tien Shan.
Asia has several morphological extremes of the Earth’s land surface, comparable to the very best and lowest points, the longest coastline, and the most important continental shelf area, as a result of its enormous size and comparatively young age. Asia’s vast mountain ranges, diverse coastlines, and vast continental plains and basins have had a profound impact on human history.
The proven fact that Asia produces enormous amounts of fossil fuels—oil, natural gas, and coal—and contributes significantly to the world’s production of many minerals (e.g., about three-fifths of the world’s tin), underscores the importance of its geology to the well-being of the world’s population.
When the land that now constitutes the Indian subcontinent collided with Asia 50 million years ago, it affected the arrangement of the continents in addition to the world’s climate.
A bunch of scientists from Princeton University discovered one more effect: the quantity of oxygen on the earth’s oceans increased, changing living conditions. The findings were reported in Science magazine. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Ocean Sciences.
Geologists used tiny fossil shells to reconstruct a 40-million-year record of ocean nitrogen content, from 70 million years ago, just before the extinction of the dinosaurs, to 30 million years ago. Scientists collected soil containing fossils from the depths of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and examined the nitrogen trapped within the tiny shells. The amount of oxygen dissolved in water affects the nitrogen level.
Because oxygen is more soluble in colder water, scientists have predicted that oxygen levels within the oceans will rise as Earth’s climate cools. On the opposite hand, nitrogen data from prehistoric times showed that oxygen levels rose several million years before widespread cooling.
The probably offender? Tectonic plates. The collision of India and Asia closed Tethys, an ancient sea where low-oxygen waters evolved, changing the balance of oxygen and nitrogen within the ocean.
Source: Britannica.com, NSF.gov/discoveries
