This is great in theory but in practice we just don't have enough fossils for it to be truly interesting. It's more like "Which dinosaurs lived seven hundred miles away from your hometown?"
What did Earth look like X million years ago?
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Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?
#72See here for the dinosaurs by region [1] [1]: https://dinosaurpictures.org/
These are all renderings. Why no photos?
> These are all renderings. Why no photos?
Alas! It would seem the Time Travel machine somehow erases the photos during the return trip, so renderings is all they can do.
Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?
#73We've still got AT&T and an IBM in my hometown, there's probably even a few PHP web-shops there too!
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Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?
#74Are there sci-fi stories with the premise that a character wakes up transported to a different planet except it’s later revealed that it’s actually Earth in a distant time?
[Spoiler Alert:] Original 1968 “Planet of the Apes”? It's a great visual reveal in the last moments of the film; no dialog needed.
> It's a great visual reveal in the last moments of the film; no dialog needed.
Dialog is present and very famous, though. ("You maniacs! You blew it up!")
Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?
#75Hi HN, I built this. It's been posted several times before, so I can answer some common questions: How does this work? I adapted GPlates [1], an academic project that creates desktop software for geologists to investigate plate tectonic data. Is the geocoding accurate? Even though plate tectonic models return precise results, you should consider the plots approximate within ~100km. In my tests I found that model resu…
This is one of the coolest web apps I've seen... awesome work!
Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?
#76I never realized until seeing this 3D globe that literally an entire side of the earth only had water. I've seen drawings of Pangaea before but never in a 3-dimensional sphere. Just interesting to see and entire 1/2 of the earth with nothing but ocean. I wonder how common this is on other planets.
We're not too far off right now:
Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?
#77One of the neat bits from this is going to 340 Mya and look at where the Appalachian mountain range runs. You can hike part of the Appalachian trail in Spain https://www.geologiadesegovia.info/the-international-appalac... and Ireland https://iatulsterireland.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Appalachian_Trai...
I have relatives with property along a river in Bath county Virginia. Across the river stands a ~200ft high cliff with caves that go for miles. I was told that they were formed by the ocean. That explanation bothered me because the caves face west. Now it makes sense! They have also discovered seashell fossils by the river!
Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?
#78One of the neat bits from this is going to 340 Mya and look at where the Appalachian mountain range runs. You can hike part of the Appalachian trail in Spain https://www.geologiadesegovia.info/the-international-appalac... and Ireland https://iatulsterireland.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Appalachian_Trai...
Earth’s land and water hemispheres [1] were particularly stark in contrast back in the time of the dinosaurs. Are there geological theories as to how the asymmetry formed? Could major impact events from astronomical objects have played a role? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_and_water_hemispheres
In digging on it, Ancient Supercontinents and the Paleogeography of Earth looks to be an interesting book https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780128185339/ancient-sup...
This appears to be part of a geologic scale cycle - https://www.livescience.com/38218-facts-about-pangaea.html
> The current configuration of continents is unlikely to be the last. Supercontinents have formed several times in Earth's history, only to be split off into new continents. Right now for instance, Australia is inching toward Asia, and the eastern portion of Africa is slowly peeling off from the rest of the continent.
> Based on the emergence of other supercontinents in the Precambrian supereon (4.5 billion to 541 million years ago), it appears that supercontinents occur periodically every 750 million years, according to a 2012 study in the journal Gondwana Research (opens in new tab).
> Most scientists believe that the supercontinent cycle is largely driven by circulation dynamics in the mantle, according to a 2010 article in the Journal of Geodynamics (opens in new tab).
Water/land hemispheres would then be an artifact of that cycle. Given that cycle, it will happen again - https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-think-earth-s-next-s...
Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?
#79It'd be nice if it followed land and not just location. I'm sure it's more complicated then I think, but this model is kinda silly
Bloody plate tectonics! When you watch geo[thingie] at this speed you start to appreciate how there is no such thing as terra firma. Take the UK and Ireland - thanks to sea level changes it expands and contracts pretty madly and that's only change in one dimension. At several points it was part of the European land mass and faster than you can say Brexit the Dogger bank floods over and Neanderthals got wet feet.
If you also tried to follow land, you'd have to account for subduction and whatever the opposite of that is on continental scales and land created by volcanoes and lost by volcanoes exploding etc on a smaller scale.
Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?
#80Could not resolve location for "Barcelona, Catalonia, ES" :(
Really. It found Yeovil (UK) which is smaller than your neighbour - BDN!