Describe how one technological advance caused scientists to view earth as a system rather than individual parts.

Answer: Mueller and his classmates sensed far more ground to cover. Three decades later, Mueller, now at the University of Sydney, is part of a new upheaval in tectonics, this time ignited by advances in computing power. The same leaps in big-data analysis, supercomputing, and intelligent algorithms that have shaken up finance, genetics, and espionage are transforming our view of the elusive ancient world.

These tools are allowing Mueller and a bold group of scientists, known as paleogeologists, to chart not only Pangaea, but the supercontinents that came before it, with the aim of producing the most precise map of the Earth and its natural resources ever known.

"It's like detective work. You have pieces of evidence. You have to find who committed the crime."

Already, Mueller's team, working with collaborators at the University of Oslo and Caltech, has completed a stunningly detailed digital reconstruction of 410 million years of earthly history, going back to the collision of then-existing continents that created Pangaea.