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What did Earth look like X million years ago?

dinosaurpictures.org

101–110 of 120 posts

Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?

#101
post #82
post #57

Hi 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…

Is the rotation lock when viewing North/South Pole intentional? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal_lock

It allows for north to always be up without causing mayhem when you try to move over the poles. The alternative is to allow free movement but no guarantee on orientation which can get confusion on things like this.

Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?

#104
post #57

Hi 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 doesn't appear to work for me. When I enter a city name it just places a red sphere on the globe. Nothing about dinosaurs.

I clicked around on soemthing and got a list. Around me was some huge whale Dino.

First I had to set the date to the Jurassic.

Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?

#105
post #84
post #57

Hi 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…

one suggestion is that rotation should be disabled by default, disable itself when you manually move the globe, or at least not hidden behind a toggle otherwise very cool

I found the rotation inconvenient as well.

As the instructions in the bottom suggest, arrow keys can be used to skip over the times, which was good. It would be neat try having the up/down change the time (as they currently do) and left/right (instead of also navigating the times) do east/west rotation (or vice versa).

Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?

#106
Reading through the descriptions of each time period, it suddenly struck me that I had no idea Earth had so many mass extinctions. It's a bit mind-blowing that the one that put an end to the dinosaurs was not even the worst (by percentage of species killed off).

I also somehow hadn't appreciated that multi-cellular animals existed before multi-cellular plants.

Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?

#107
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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!")

I’d argue that those lines were mysterious until the subsequent closing shot that functions as the visual punch line. At least ten-year-old me didn’t get the earlier hints.

Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't appear to work for me. When I enter a city name it just places a red sphere on the globe. Nothing about dinosaurs.

Yeah same - I think the post title was recently edited because the original title was very explicit about it showing you dinosaurs that were found in your area. I live in Miami, so I typed that in and was waiting to see the cousins of all the strange cold-blooded oddities I see everyday and it was exactly as you describe. I recently saw one of those flappy neck lizards maybe 3 months ago so was expecting to see that…

[deleted]

Re: What did Earth look like X million years ago?

#110
post #57

Hi 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…

Would it be possible to show the Earth at X million years in the future?
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