Seismic shift: Is India disappearing under China?

India and China's relationship has repeatedly been tested by one central question: Where does our land begin and yours end? The border disagreement between the two nuclear powers has led to weaponized standoffs for decades.

Now, a video has stirred up passions in India again: In a report for NDTV, the Indian news broadcaster's Science Editor Pallava Bagla explains in his words how India is losing land to China . The reporter blames the laws of nature, plate tectonics to be precise. 

What are plate tectonics?

The Earth's crust is like a puzzle, constructed out of many pieces: There are a few gigantic oceanic plates and many smaller continental or "crustal" plates. However, scientists disagree over the exact number of the smaller plates.

These plates "swim" on the Earth's inner, molten mantle. When magma from the planet's core bubbles up where there are cracks, the plates shift — often a few centimeters in a year.

This natural phenomenon has happened for billions of years, and in fact, it is totally normal. The plates either move apart, rub against each other, or shove themselves under one another. As a result, the continents above also move in what is known as plate tectonics.

What is unique about the Indian plate?

Fifty million years ago, the Indian plate rammed the Eurasian plate, upon which China lies, with such a speed that it created a movement of about 30 centimeters (about 12 inches) per year.

Research into this historical event led scientists at the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ), working with colleagues from India's National Geophysical Research Institute and Freie Universität Berlin in 2007, to dub the Indian continent "the world's fastest."

Was it a cause for celebration? No. The problem is that speed has its price.

While the pushing and shoving by the Indian plate against the Eurasian plate created the Himalayas, the world's highest mountain range, it also has caused regular hefty earthquakes in the region.

Perhaps even worse, it's causing constant land loss for India. The world's most populous nation has moved about 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) towards northern Asia in the millions of years since that historic collision.

The Indian plate moves about five centimeters per year towards the Eurasian plate and, with that, 'under' China.

Will India eventually disappear?

"If India continues to shove itself under the Eurasian plate, the country will eventually disappear," said Sabrina Metzger, a geophysicist at GFZ.

But Metzger also said the speed at which the Indian plate is bashing the Eurasian plate will continue to reduce.

"That's how such collisions work," said Metzger, "at some point, they stop." Indeed, the Indian plate was a lot faster millions of years ago.

So, no need to panic, said Metzger, adding that India could lose land for an entirely different reason, namely, because of rising sea levels. And that would be cause for concern.   

Sources:

The rapid drift of the Indian tectonic plate, published by Kumar, P., Yuan, X., Kumar, M. et al. in the journal Nature (October 2007) 

It's boiling in the Himalayas by Felix Lorenz, published by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung 

This article was originally published in German.