ML/NJ
Posted on 04/29/2012 3:17:02 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The Tibetan Plateau has gradually risen since the Indian plate collided with the Eurasian plate at about 55 Ma. Regardless of the debates over the rising process and elevation of the plateau, there is no doubt that the Himalayas have appeared as a mountain range since the Miocene, with the appearance of vegetation vertical zones following thereafter. Open grasslands per se have no direct relationship to elevation, because they can have different elevations in different regions of the world, having a distribution near the sea level to the extreme high plateaus. On the other hand, the southern margin of the Tibetan Plateau has been high and steep to follow the uplift of this plateau so that the open landscape must be above the timberline in the vegetation vertical zones. Because the Zanda Basin is located on the south edge of the Tibetan Plateau, its vegetation ecosystem is tightly linked to the established vertical zones along the Himalayas. In the Zanda area, the modern timberline is at an elevation of 3,600 m between the closed forest and the open steppe. The locomotive analysis indicates that the Zanda horse was more suited to live in an open environment above the timberline, as opposed to a dense forest. The inference of high-elevation open habitat is supported by the carbon isotope data, which indicate that grasses ingested by the the Zanda horse, like the modern wild Tibetan asses, were cool-season grasses commonly found in high-elevation ecosystems. Other mid-Pliocene mammalian forms from Zanda also indicate an open landscape.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Please tell me what effect it has? Tibet is around 30 Deg North. Is there more oxygen at 30 Deg north and 10,000 or more feet up?
ML/NJ
ML/NJ
Temperature goes down with latitude or altitude going up.
[singing] chestnuts roasting on an open fire...
Duh! About 5 Deg F per 1000 feet as I recall. (I used to be a pilot.) Temperature isn't the problem for grass. There's plenty of grass in Florida. The problem for all vegetation is that at some point there just isn't enough CO2 in the atmosphere for it to grow, Al Gore notwithstanding.
ML/NJ
Lol! I’m calling PETA...
The writer of this article said altitude wasn’t diagnostic, which is what you now agree with, but nearly immediately had said was BS.
There is no grass in Antarctica, or above a meandering line along the Arctic Ocean. So, yes, temperature does have an impact. On steep heights the problem is generally, no soil, and the higher one goes, lack of liquid water. There’s nowhere on Earth (above water at least) where the CO2 level falls below where plants can survive.
Thanks. I thought for a minute somebody had come up with another way of denigrating BC and AD.
The title mystifies me. Please explain why or how a rise in elevation relates in some way to the construction of the hoofs of horses.
Or, you could read more than the title, that might help.
The fastest way to do that is to insert it into a discussion where it doesn’t belong.
I ran across an assertion once that moving 300 miles towards the nearer pole is the climatic equivalent of increasing altitude 1000 ft.
Don’t know how true it is.
You are absolutely correct. However, I did read it, and concluded that the EVOLUTIONIST writer’s premise was a wordy crock. I agree pretty much with REPLIES #3 and #7.
But thanks for your reply. Better do something about that chip on your shoulder. It’s beginning to cause you to list to port.
Do something about the chip on your shoulder ere complaining about the imaginary ones you’ve spotted on others’.
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