When will Africa will collide with southern Europe, closing the Mediterranean Sea?

It will take roughly 50 million years for the next major new collisions (“touching”) between currently separated continents, and about 250 million years for a full supercontinent to form again. These are educated scientific projections based on current plate motions, but they become increasingly uncertain the farther into the future we look because new subduction zones or rifts can form and completely change the pattern.

Important context first

Tectonic plates move very slowly—typically 1–10 cm per year—so “touching” (a continent-continent collision that closes an ocean basin and creates a land connection) takes tens of millions of years. Many continents are already touching today via land bridges or isthmuses:

• Europe and Asia form the single landmass Eurasia.
• Africa connects to Asia via the Sinai Peninsula.
• North and South America connect via the Isthmus of Panama.
• Only Australia and Antarctica are truly isolated island continents right now.

Some collisions are already happening on geological timescales (e.g., parts of the Australian plate have been colliding with the Indonesian islands on the edge of the Asian plate for the last ~20 million years, pushing up mountains). Africa has been slowly converging with Europe for millions of years (forming the Alps and other ranges). So “any continent touches any other” is already true in several places. The question is really about the next significant new continent-continent collisions where an ocean fully closes.

The next collisions (~50 million years from now)

According to widely used paleogeographic models (especially those developed by geologist Christopher Scotese and others), if current motions continue:

• Africa will collide with southern Europe, closing the Mediterranean Sea and creating a new mountain range (similar in scale to the Himalayas today).
• Australia will collide with Southeast Asia, “beaching” itself against Indonesia and the rest of the Asian mainland and forming another mountain chain.

These are the first major new continent-on-continent impacts where there is currently open ocean between the main landmasses.

The full supercontinent (~200–250 million years from now)

In roughly 250 million years, most or all of the world’s continents are predicted to merge into a single giant landmass again—a new supercontinent. Scientists have given it different names depending on the exact scenario:

• Pangaea Ultima (or Pangaea Proxima) — the Atlantic closes and the Americas crash into Africa/Europe/Asia.
• Other models include Novopangea (Pacific closes), Amasia (Arctic/Pacific focus), or Aurica (both oceans close).

All credible models put this full re-assembly in the 200–300 million-year range, most commonly cited as ~250 million years.

Why the timelines vary

• Short-term (next 50 million years): fairly reliable because they are simple extrapolations of today’s measured plate velocities.
• Longer-term (100+ million years): much more speculative. New subduction zones can suddenly appear (as may already be starting in the Atlantic), or existing ones can change, so the exact configuration of the future supercontinent is still debated among geologists.

In short: the continents are already in contact in several places, the next big new collisions are expected in about 50 million years, and the next true supercontinent (all major landmasses together) is roughly 250 million years away.