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Antarctica had a rainforest 90 million years ago.
History Facts ^ | 05/17/2024

Posted on 05/18/2024 8:10:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

It’s difficult to comprehend within our limited, double-digit life spans, but Earth is a dynamic planet that is constantly changing. The continents have crashed together and separated a handful of times now (Pangaea is the latest supercontinent, but not the only one), and the planet’s atmosphere, oceans, and orbit are all temporary and movable.

Take, for instance, Antarctica, arguably the most inhospitable place on the planet. Not long ago (geologically speaking), the icy continent wasn’t frozen at all. In fact, it was filled with temperate rainforests teeming with life.

Some 90 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period — the tail end of the age of dinosaurs — Antarctica was home to a completely different habitat, known as the “Cretaceous hothouse.” The Earth was much warmer due to increased carbon dioxide levels (sea-surface temperatures in the tropics were at an incredible 95 degrees Fahrenheit, for example), and the world’s oceans were a staggering 558 feet higher than they are today. Estimates suggest that Cretaceous Antarctica had a climate similar to today’s Italian peninsula and was filled with plant and animal life, including dinosaurs.

The southern continent’s hospitality didn’t end with the dinosaurs, either; it continued on into the Eocene Epoch around 56 million to 34 million years ago.

It was then that marsupials likely migrated across Antarctica from South America into modern-day Australia before the continents separated. So while Antarctica is pretty inhospitable to humans now, it may just be a phase.

There’s a place in Antarctica that hasn’t seen precipitation for nearly 2 million years.

Earth wouldn’t be much without water. When you see our home from space, the entire planet seems filled with the stuff — from vast oceans to continent-spanning weather systems. But there is one place where precipitation holds no sway, and that’s Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys.

According to scientists’ best estimates, these valleys haven’t seen rain in nearly 2 million years. The area is so parched thanks to a phenomenon called katabatic wind, also known as downslope wind, in which gravity pulls cold, moisture-filled mountain winds down and away from these valleys — blowing away all the precipitation with it.

The lack of moisture and extremely low temperatures in the Dry Valleys make the place a near-perfect analog for the Martian surface, and scientists use experiments in the region to help them understand how extremely cold, dry environments work.


TOPICS: History; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: antarctic; antarctica; catastrophism; climatechange; cretaceous; eltaninimpact; godsgravesglyphs; prehistory; rainforest
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To: SeekAndFind

Make Antartia Green Again!!!


21 posted on 05/18/2024 11:15:39 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: adorno

And yet that younger generation believes it wholeheartedly without questioning at all. Scientist saying that 90 billion years ago and Antarctica was tropical. There’s your evidence that the whole global warming thing is a farce. I know we already knew that. Global warming the Etzel over their generation
Hopefully


22 posted on 05/19/2024 2:07:41 AM PDT by Uversabound (Might does not make right, but it does enforce the commonly recognized rights of each succeeding gen)
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To: SeekAndFind

Yep. I wrote a very short story about it:

http://www.arxpub.com/TarpeianRock/TR_2015_Cretaceous_Carol.html


23 posted on 05/19/2024 2:27:50 AM PDT by Claud
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To: metmom

Part of the evidence consists of fossils we’ve dug up. Tree and herbivorous dinosaur fossils in Antarctica, marine fossils in the Great Basin of the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctopelta


24 posted on 05/19/2024 2:32:47 AM PDT by Claud
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To: Dad was my hero

Great point, better said than I have
Questions i ask “climate change” types
1. What is the normal temp for the earth
2. According to “scientists “ we have had several very extreme climate change events over earths history. Several ice ages including mini ice age which ended in the 1800s and lasted several hundred years. What caused them and what ended them? Dinosaur SUVs and coal fired power plants?
3. If CO2 is the issue why do ice cores show periods where co2 was much higher but temperatures did not correspond to current narrative?
4 I get called denier and they walk away


25 posted on 05/19/2024 3:03:35 AM PDT by blitz128
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To: californian by choice
I think I understand that Antarctica 90,000 years ago was closer to the equator than to the poles.

Correct.

26 posted on 05/19/2024 3:10:43 AM PDT by Lazamataz ("First we beat the Soviet Union. Then we became them." -- Lazamataz, 2005)
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To: adorno

he dinosaurs started driving their big gas-guzzling SUVs


That was only the start, their wasteful planes and rockets just spewed all sorts of atmospheric pollutants, which in the long run helped to drastically lower the oxygen content, with the three huge metoric explosions becoming the igniters that burned off a huge percentage of Earth’s oxygen.


27 posted on 05/19/2024 4:14:40 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: SeekAndFind

12 thousand years ago North America was under an ice sheet. Climate change is real, it has been changing since time began. If it aint getting warmer, it is getting colder.

We aint the reason for climate change, nature is.


28 posted on 05/19/2024 4:48:05 AM PDT by weezel
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To: Jonty30

Yes...Antarctica wasn’t where it is 90 million years ago.


29 posted on 05/19/2024 4:49:02 AM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (Perfection is impossible. But if you pursue perfection...you may achieve excellence.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Yep climate change takes millions of years ,LOL


30 posted on 05/19/2024 6:19:21 AM PDT by butlerweave
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To: SeekAndFind
Antarctica had a rainforest 90 million years ago

Liberals: We have to blame this on evil Trump supporters. Let's raise taxes to see how we can blame them!! 🤓

31 posted on 05/19/2024 6:35:12 AM PDT by Deplorable American1776 (Guns don't kill people, LIBERALS DO!! Support the Second Amendment...)
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To: SeekAndFind

Climate change is natural. Deal with it.


32 posted on 05/19/2024 7:09:43 AM PDT by beethovenfan (The REAL Great Reset will be when Jesus returns. )
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To: SeekAndFind

I did a science fair project some 50 years ago or so. My mom helped me bake clay continents in the oven for the project. Continental drift was barely a thing back then. Thanks Mom..


33 posted on 05/19/2024 7:42:24 AM PDT by EVO X ( )
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To: Jonty30

In that time frame all of the continental plates were all over the place, some at the poles and some on the equator. Tying plant life to world environment (e.g., global warming) is risky since that continent might have been straddling the equator when those forests were growing. Yah gotta look at a piccie of the globe to get an idea of what was where.


34 posted on 05/19/2024 7:54:38 AM PDT by bobbo666 (Baizuo, )
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To: metmom

When I lived in New Mexico I found petrified tree stumps in the middle of the desert, miles from any water, and the Indian Pueblos were evacuated because of a massive drought, they believe.


35 posted on 05/19/2024 8:18:19 AM PDT by girlangler (Fish Fear Me)
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To: metmom

When I lived in New Mexico I found petrified tree stumps in the middle of the desert, miles from any water, and the Indian Pueblos were evacuated because of a massive drought, they believe.


36 posted on 05/19/2024 8:18:53 AM PDT by girlangler (Fish Fear Me)
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To: metmom

BKMK


37 posted on 05/19/2024 9:21:20 AM PDT by lizma2
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To: Secret Agent Man

How could palm trees survive long enough in that cold climate to have anything left to be preserved under the ice? Wouldn’t that imply a sudden catastrophic event rather than gradual changes in climate over vast amounts of time?


38 posted on 05/19/2024 11:10:13 AM PDT by unlearner (I, Robot: I think I finally understand why Dr. Lanning created me... ;-)
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To: Jonty30

Wow. And the earth continued living....


39 posted on 05/19/2024 11:13:54 AM PDT by If You Want It Fixed - Fix It
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To: unlearner

Yes. Its the same reasoning why they’ve found frozen Wolly Mammoths with undigested food in their stomachs.


40 posted on 05/19/2024 11:16:18 AM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
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