As the Earth goes through time, we began to see that the species that were developing were slowly evolving into the modern day turtles that we see now. They began to lose their rough scaly shell with the N. argentina and the N.oweni and began to develop a more smooth texture, needed for swimming. This is where we discover the genus Meiolania (“small roamer”). The species within Meiolania have been known to be on earth until about 2000-3000 years ago living between the Oligocene-Holocene eras and it mainly resided within Australia, Lord Howe Island, New Caledonia and Vanuatu varying in different sizes while in different areas. Meiolania had a very unusually shaped skull that hosted many knob and horn like bulges.…
The peak of our most recent ice age ended only 15,000 years ago. The earth warmed rapidly up until about 6,000 years ago. Was this from anthropogenic addition of c02? Obviously not. Earth continued to warm bringing us to the mideival warm period about 1000AD .…
The U.S. Geological Survey’s article, “Plate Tectonics in a Nutshell,” describes how convection currents can cause hot magma to reach the surface along divergent plate boundaries. Iceland, in fact, is located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which is exactly that type of divergent plate boundary. This is the beginning of the rock cycle where brand new rocks on the Earth’s surface form to replace other rocks that are lost because of the subduction of sinking plates at convergent boundaries, as also described in the “Nutshell” article. What is unique about the process as it appears in McPhee’s story is the speed and violence with which the changes happen. McPhee describes how the fishing island of Heimaey had to be evacuated with little warning due to a gigantic volcanic eruption in 1973.…
The Mesozoic Era was a point in time about 252 to about 66 million years ago. During this era, there were three periods. The Triassic period, The Jurassic Period, and The Cretaceous period were all very significant in earth’s evolution. Not just in animals, but in land, plants, climate, and even insects.…
Chapter 1: Almost 70 million years ago, the most recent of apocalyptic extinction events occurred, wiping out the dinosaurs and signaling the start of a new era. The Cenozoic Era (age of mammals) has been split into seven sections called epochs with the final epoch being called the Holocene epoch, which brought forth a new ecosystem that harbored humanity. To conclude the eras that occurred previously, there have been five apocalyptic extinction events that occur roughly every 100 million year, and considering that humanity is 70 million years into the Cenozoic Era, humanity’s corrosion of Earth is considered to be the sixth Extinction event. Some scientists seek to distinguish the rise of man as a separate epoch known as the Anthropocene, or Epoch of Man, due to humanities obvious impact on the planet and ecosystems. Chapter 10:…
1. Outline Alfred Wegener’s hypothesis of Continental Drift Alfred Wegener believed all Earth’s continents were once joined together but gradually moved apart for millions of years by cracking and dividing due to slow currents of magna beneath it. 2. Cut out the attached Gondwana Jigsaw along the dotted lines.…
Neotectonics in Australia. Abstract The cratons of the world that are located at a distance from plate boundaries are considered to be stable tectonically, but in real sense, they are subjected to regular disturbance that are less persistence and also of lesser magnitude than those that lies near plate boundaries, Nonetheless their manifestation can be seen in landscape. Neotectonics are post Miocene tectonic deformation on the earth surface.…
After dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago, mammals began to evolve and diversify into new niches. In order to understand and disentangle this convoluted history of mammals, paleontologists narrowed the focus of their studies to horse because horse evolution occurred approximately at around 55 million years ago, and their fossil record is highly rich in details. In the next several paragraphs, we will discuss the morphological changes in horse from the Eocene epoch to the Holocene epoch and determine how these changes in characteristics may have a paralleled relation to the species’ environment. Eocene epoch lasted from 55 to 45 million years ago. The horse genus at that time was Hyracotherium, relatively small in size with a…
The Earth's crust is constantly moving in all directions. The movement of the crust is called plate tectonics. Plate tectonics hasn't been developed very long, only about fifty years. It was founded by geophysicists in the 1960's.…
Have you ever heard of the theory of plate tectonics? Around the beginning of the 1960s the discovery of this theory started an uprising in the study of earth sciences. Between now and then, this theory has been confirmed by scientists, who are able to formulate a much better understanding of how plate tectonics shaped the way our planet is today. It is now knows that plate tectonics has or has had at least some influence over almost all geologic processes. AS I’m sure you can imagine, the idea that the entire crust of the earth constantly shifts has dramatically altered the way we think of the planet we live on.…
Plate tectonics play a fundamental role in climate change around the globe. More than 200 million years ago, the continents were merged together as one giant landmass called Pangaea (Cosmato,2016). As the continents moved, their positions on Earth changed, and so did the movements of ocean currents. Both of these changes had effects on climate. Plate tectonics affect climate by different movements (vertical and lateral) both in which affect air circulation.…
James Haley. San Diego: Greenhaven press, 2002 Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web.3 Aug.2015. Global climate changes, including episodes of global cooling and warming, have occurred many times throughout earth’s history as a result of natural variations in solar radiation, atmospheric chemistry, oceanic and atmospheric circulations, volcanic eruptions, and other factors. However, it’s primarily caused by human activities that started during the…
Earth is ever-changing through natural disasters; which scientists would presume that it would be the primary reason…
The introduction of new technology has caused a substantial amount of carbon put into the atmosphere, causing Earth to warm. The winter has become shorter and the summers longer and hotter. Ice caps have melted, leaving us worried about the rising water. Ultimately, it might have become too late for us to reverse the damage we have caused to…
It has been proven that what caused climate change is not only due to human factors but natural factors as well. As in the article “causes of climate change”, it talked about how the natural and anthropogenic effects are causes of the changes in our climate. Some natural causes are the effects of plate tectonics, volcanoes, the earth’s tilt, and ocean currents. Plate tectonics, where countries and “continents were all part of one large landmass” (Causes of climate change. Retrieved November 23, 2015 ) in the past, at some point in time moved into different positions and drift apart, caused continents around the earth to experience different climate conditions than they used to experience before this shift in their positions.…