This Interactive Map Of The Ancient Earth Is The Best Thing Online This Week
Who among us has not fallen into that one specific Wikipedia hole where we're reading about dinosaurs, then Pangea, then the various epochs of our planet and finally just flipping through various images of what the Earth used to look like, silently murmuring to yourself, "Wow this is insane, but also I wonder where my house would be?"
Well, friend, if you've been seeking the answer to that last question, you're in luck. Internet website Dinosaurpictures.org, the self-proclaimed "largest dinosaur database," has an interactive 3D model of the Earth through the various geologic periods of the Earth, starting with the Cryogenian 750 million years ago and ending with today in the Holocene.
While it's sure cool as heck to see the geological progression of the Earth on a rotating, three-dimensional sphere, a nifty little feature is the ability to specific a location and see the land masses move around it over the course of time.
For example, here is the rough location of the Digg office in Brooklyn, NY, during what is thought to be a period where the planet was almost completely encased in ice, 750 million years ago. Only sponges and shelled amoeba known as Arcellinida roam the frozen wastelands of Earth. The site of the future Digg office sits underwater. Blogging has yet to be invented.
We now travel forward some 500 million years to the late Permian period. Primitive cockroaches and dragonflies are the pinnacle of insect evolution, while massive reptiles roamed the supercontinent known as Pangea. Eventually, the largest extinction event on the planet will take place, commonly known as "the Great Dying," wiping out 96% of marine life and will be the only time the insect world has suffered a mass extinction. The future site of the Digg office now sits high atop a mountain range that will eventually become the modern-day Appalachian Mountains. Blogging has yet to be invented.
Advancing another some 150 million years brings us to the Cretaceous period. The seas are warm, famous dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurs Rex and Triceratops dominate the land, cohabiting now with new arrivals like flowers and mammals. In another 40 million years scientists believe that a comet or asteroid will strike what is now Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, wiping out the dinosaurs and almost all life on Earth. The future site of the Digg office rests close to an ever-widening Atlantic Ocean. Blogging has yet to be invented.
A final 150 million year advance and we have arrived to today. In just 20 million years, the first humanoids have evolved from living out of caves to setting foot on the Moon. Over a few millennia they continually inflict an incredible amount of pain and suffering on themselves, eventually developing a means to end virtually all life on earth with the push of a button. The natural resources of the planet are harvested and put to use by humans to move things around, within a century the average temperature of the planet rises, destabilizing the climate and the ecosystems that have evolved around it.
A method for computers to communicate is invented, and quickly spans the globe. A website to cull together the best things from around this network, now known as the internet, is created. Its office is located in a city called San Francisco. Blogging is invented. The website goes bankrupt, is bought, and relaunched at an office in a city called New York. This post is written by an employee of that website, and posted to the internet. You are now reading these words on that website.
On a geologic time scale, this happens in an instant. When whatever proceeds us eventually gains the ability to determine past events by looking at rocks very, very closely this blog post will likely not come up. In some 70 years, the writer of this post will most likely be dead, as will just about everyone they know and love. Still, who knows what will happen tomorrow?
