Why is there so much more land north of the equator than south?
In: 7
Because that’s the way the continents happened to drift during the current era. During previous eras land was distributed differently and it will be again in the far future.
coincidence. Earth had land in all sorts of different places in the past as the tectonic plates drifted around and sea levels rose and fell (that being primarily due to ice ages)
Well, obviously, with all that land floating on the water most of it would float to the top… ^/s
Let me put this another way;
Why would expect there to be an equal amount on both sides?
Plate tectonics moves the plates around on geological timescales. That motion is controlled by large scale forces and structures, but the net effect is that there is no preferential location on the planet for continents to exist as they drift around.
There is no preferred location, and one continent doesn’t care where other continents are. SO there is no driving force to balance the locations either side of a rather arbitrary line. So the location of the continents is somewhat arbitrary, from a statistical point of view.
SO the only real answer to why is there more North than SOuth, is basically because “that’s just how it is at the moment”. There are plenty of periods of geological history where this isn’t true. The weird thing would be if there were any substantial periods where these proportions were truly equal.
It’s entirely coincidence
Plate tectonics has moved the continents around a lot. Before the age of dinosaurs the continents were mostly in the southern hemisphere
You’ve received some good answers but just to add – the Mercator map you’re used to seeing is heavily distorted and was actually created to show the spread of Christianity. Take a look at the authagraph map to see the correct proportions.
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