Animated map of how Earth will look in 250 million years

According to plate tectonics theory, Earth's outer shell is divided into multiple plates that slowly glide over the mantle. This slowly changes Earth's surface over time by merging, or separating, continents. Here, we used projections from Chris Scotese — a professor with Northwestern University's Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences — to show how Earth will look in 250 million years.