Future Alaskans just might find the eastern tip of Russia at their front doors under one possible scenario discussed in a technical study published this week in Nature.

The creation of the supercontinent Amasia -- the marrying of North America to Asia -- would bridge the Bering Strait and close up the Arctic Ocean, according to an analysis of global subduction patterns and the vagaries of drifting tectonic plates.

“A new model of supercontinent cycles reported in this week’s Nature predicts that Amasia will form 90 degrees away from where Pangaea was situated,” a summary of the article explains. “According to this model, the Americas will remain in the Pacific ‘ring of fire’, closing the Arctic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.”

The Earth’s tectonic plates, including the continental land masses, drift across the surface over eons and periodically form a single colossal chunk known as a supercontinent. The most recent example, Pangaea, existed 300 million to 200 million years ago, during the dawn of the dinosaurs.

The new study, led by supercontinent specialist Ross Mitchell of Yale University, worked out a new process for this ultimate tectonic bliss. Instead of forming on top of the previous supercontinent or on the opposite side of the world as expected, the next huge land mass might congeal at a right angle to the former Pangaea — “within the great circle of subduction encircling its relict predecessor.”

Don’t start buying Bering Strait real estate or Russian phrase books just yet.

The Age of Amasia won’t arrive for about 100 million years. For those yearning to ponder these far-distant tectonic futures and other possible supercontinents, check out Pangaea Ultima and Novopangaea.

Contact Doug O'Harra at doug(at)alaskadispatch.com