WHO ELSE REMEMBERS:

The Western Interior Seaway

—

Bill Bryson (via shadowofveils)

gotta admit that thinking too much about stuff like this or the Siberian traps is enough to make you want to get off this rock before it’s too late.

(via argumate)

Actually, the fact that we need to reach back tens of millions of years to find something this bad is immensely reassuring. On the scale of human lifetimes these disasters don’t happen

First direct proof of mega-flood in Mediterranean Sea region six million years ago.

Geologists from Utrecht, London and Granada have found the first direct proof of the largest known mega-flood that ever occurred on earth. This mega-flood ended what is known as the ‘Messinian Salinity Crisis’, a period around six million years ago when the water level in the Mediterranean Sea sank by around 1.5 km, causing an extreme environmental crisis in the region. The authors studied sandstone that was exposed along the southern coast of Sicily and concluded that it was formed by a powerful flow from the western Mediterranean Sea towards the east. The water flowed over a barrier that separated what were then isolated basins in the western and eastern Mediterranean region. Their research was recently published in the journal Sedimentology.

ISOLATED, DESICCATED MEDITERRANEAN

FLOODED MEDITERRANEAN

GUYS OKAY this is my latest favorite animal actually!

-it’s the fastest rodent in the world

-due to convergent evolution it basically evolved to have antelope legs

-like the pronghorn antelope who is still built to outrun long-extinct cheetahs, it’s so much faster than its current predators, the fox and puma, who catch it by ambush rather than at a sprint (and not often!)

-this is because when north america bonked into south america, placental mammals and especially rodents swarmed down into the new continent and diversified, outcompeting the marsupials in just about every ecological niche

-we’re not sure WHAT used to hunt it to the point that it got so darn fast but we think it might have been gigantic terror birds and metatherians, a sort of predatory wolf-ish progenitor of modern marsupials

-the world is full of the weirdest critters you can imagine and i love it

you’d be fast too if this was what was after you

@roach-works The "rodents out-competing marsupials after the interchange" part is incorrect as the mara is part of a parvorder of rodents known as Caviomorpha whose ancestors rafted across the ocean from Africa to South America during the Miocene, over 40 million years before the isthmus of Panama connected the America's!

that’s insane. love that for them.

I think so much about the food people ate pre-Columbian exchange. Huge parts of cuisine extremely important on both sides of the pond just didn't exist.

You've probably heard a little about what was brought over from the New World, corn, potatoes, cocoa, cassava, peanuts, chili peppers, avocadoes, cranberries, pumpkins, and the like. Imagine cooking without chili! Without potatoes! Modern Indian cuisine contains enormous amounts of potatoes and we just didn't have those for the vast majority of history. The best of the nightshades all on one contiguous hunk of land. Hell, tomatoes! Almost forgot about those.

But we don't often look at what the Old World had. Wheat! Barley! Rice! A profusion of incredible grains, really, the finest poaceae has to offer. Carrots! Tons of rosaceous plants like apples and cherries and pears and peaches and apricots! Grapes! Soy and Bamboo! Okra and watermelon! All these things were simply never found in the Americas. The grains one is the wildest for me, the variety of grains available across Eurasia and Africa was truly astounding.

You know what binds together the food of all cultures across the world? Onions. Onions are fucking everywhere. There's probably onions growing near you right now. Allium Gang Unite.

I love the call-and-response between asking the intuitive question “it was so big so there must be pieces left, right?” and getting the terrifying answer “actually it was so big that there aren’t any pieces left”

SAFAFDG

Here's an excerpt from Peter Brannon's book The Ends of the World:

"These numbers are precise without usefully conveying the scale of the calamity. What they mean is that a rock larger than Mount Everest hit planet Earth traveling twenty times faster than a bullet. This is so fast that it would have traversed the distance from the cruising altitude of a 747 to the ground in 0.3 seconds. The asteroid itself was so large that, even at the moment of impact, the top of it might have still towered more than a mile above the cruising altitude of a 747. In its nearly instantaneous descent, it compressed the air below it so violently that it briefly became several times hotter than the surface of the sun.

“The pressure of the atmosphere in front of the asteroid started excavating the crater before it even got there,” Rebolledo said. “Then when the meteorite touched ground zero, it was totally intact. It was so massive that the atmosphere didn’t even make a scratch on it.”

Unlike the typical Hollywood CGI depictions of asteroid impacts, where an extraterrestrial charcoal briquette gently smolders across the sky, in the Yucatan it would have been a pleasant day one second and the world was already over by the next. As the asteroid collided with the earth, in the sky above it where there should have been air, the rock had punched a hole of outer space vacuum in the atmosphere. As the heavens rushed in to close this hole, enormous volumes of earth were expelled into orbit and beyond — all within a second or two of impact.

“So there’s probably little bits of dinosaur bone up on the moon,” I asked.

“Yeah, probably.”

i am going to create an environment that is so toxic

wtf ❤️

The dumb joke is that when cyanobacteria first invented photosynthesis, the oxygen they released was extremely toxic to all the other bacteria that existed at that point. Photosynthesis was so successful and they released so much oxygen that they nearly wiped out all life on earth.

This is called the Great Oxygenation event, or the Great Oxygen Catastrophe, it is to date one of the largest mass extinction events in earth’s history, and as far as I know it’s the single most extreme event of an organism making the environment toxic for other organisms.

Which is always funny to think about from a human perspective, because pretty much all life *except* bacteria could not have evolved if this hadn’t happened.

The Archaea - the really old bacteria that existed before cyanobacteria - are still around, they just live in weird places now like hot springs and the deep ocean where the nasty oxygen can’t reach them.

The Most Hardcore Period in Earth’s History, or the Permian, was preceded by a complete ecosystem collapse, and featured three different major mass extinction events - including the largest in earth’s history, the Great Dying, which lead to nearly all life on earth dying out. 

During the Permian, all the land on Earth was in one supercontinent, called Pangea; and all the water was in one ocean, called Panthalassa. This meant that life intermingled and expanded all over the world, more so than it was able to in other periods (besides the Triassic, which also featured a single continent and a single ocean). 

Pangea, and the Permian, was characterized by extremes. The beginning of the Period featured the end of the Karoo Ice Age - the poles were filled with ice caps, the center of the continent was dry, and temperature extremes were found throughout the land and ocean. The end featured multiple mass extinctions and a rapid warming of the continent, reaching the extreme heat of the Triassic period. 

By @franzanth​ 

The Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse was primarily caused by an intensification of that ice age - leading to the start of the Permian featuring dry, harsh, extreme climates. This time period featured the rapid diversification and specialization of some of the earliest animals adapted for a dry existence - prior to now, life almost entirely existed in the oceans, or in the forested and swampy world of the Carboniferous. This was the first truly dry time for (at least some) life.  

By @alphynix​

Olson’s Extinction marked a change from that initial habitat in the Cisuralian epoch to the next, the Guadalupian. As the world began to rapidly warm after the Karoo Ice Age ended, this lead to a major extinction of plants and vertebrates especially. The vertebrates would not fully recover before the Triassic; however, it did lead to many new forms, especially among synapsids, appearing in the new vacant environmental roles. 

(By @paleoart​) 

The Capitanian Extinction was caused by the explosion of a moderately sized laval flow system, the Emeishan Traps, which lead to immediate global cooling followed by rapid global warming. This greatly affected ocean chemistry, making it far more acidic than previously. Many reef animals were killed by this extinction, in addition to brachiopods; many vertebrates were also affected. 

(By @paleoart​) 

So the Permian was a hard, broken world when the Siberian Traps - one of the largest lava flows in Earth’s History, and one of the largest volcanic events known - exploded, leading to even more dramatic climate change and extremely rapid global warming. This lead to acidification of the ocean’s and a dramatic drop in ocean oxygen. Almost every group of organisms was dramatically affected, and this extinction was the largest known in Earth’s History, with between 85-96% of life on Earth dying out (and some researchers thinking it may have even been higher), leading to this extinction being dubbed The Great Dying. Many groups utterly disappeared, despite having been features of the entire Paleozoic Eon (the eon that the Permian was at the end of) - trilobites, eurypterids, “spiny sharks”, tabulate and rugose corals, and blastoids complete disappeared, as did many other groups. Brachiopods, Gastropods, Ammonites, Radiolarians, Foraminiferans, Crinoids, and most Parareptiles also went extinct, as did many synapsids and amphibians. It was an utter catastrophe. 

(By @paleoart​) 

The Permian was a time of extensive hardship, dramatic changes, and extinction event after extinction event. Life was truly on the brink - just as it was beginning to settle into terrestrial existence. So new animals, from insects to amniotes to conifers, spent their school years in a prehistoric hunger games - and only a few species managed to reach the weirdness kiln of the Triassic. 

Welcome to the Permian. 

The Most Hardcore Period of Earth’s History. 

Wtf, Permian

WHY THE TRIASSIC????

What the FUCK is so WEIRD about the Triassic?

Well I will TELL YOU! 

Okay so first of all, the Triassic is SUPER DUPER OLD. In the grand scheme of the Earth, sure, it happened relatively recently, but working on the scale of the entire geologic time span of the Earth’s existence is not exactly fair: 

I mean, animals that we can recognize today didn’t show up until that line in the Phanerozoic (Hadean is the oldest stuff), so like, it’s smack dab in the middle of THAT 

Look, basically, here’s what happened: 

- The earth Formed. Life Appeared. Chaos reigned (4,600 million years ago until 4,000 million years ago) 

- Life began to become more complex. Some life began to stick its blueprints inside of pockets so they’d be safer. They then swallowed other life forms that were better at getting energy, but kept them around like a buddy inside of them. Some of these guys could make a shitton of oxygen. This made the earth cool and a lot of shit die out super duper quickly. Extinction rate unknown. (4,000 million years ago until 2,500 million years ago) 

- Climate change and fluctuating oceans allow life to start to group up together into SuperLife aka Multicellular Things. These multicellular things got more and more complicated. Some became animals and started moving around a lot. Some plants went on land. Some things were super weird looking and mysterious. LOTS of experimentation by life. Things start to change and a lot of these early experiments go extinct. Extinction rate unknown. (2,500 million years ago until 541 million years ago) 

- Animals can suddenly burrow underground and go absolutely apeshit and diversify faster than you can say “wait a second whAT THE FUCK IS THAT”. Ice Age causes Death, 85% of species die out. (541-444 million years ago) 

- Fish suddenly have a chance to be weird too and some of them decide, what the heck, let’s crawl onto land. Why not, right? Some other animals decide to join them. Plants make everything super cold, 75% of all species die out. (444-359 mya) 

- Land-vertebrates start to diversify. They try out a lot of new things, but there aren’t a lot of them yet. So there’s still a lot of experimentation in body plans. Mammal-relatives are actually some of the most diverse ones. Reptiles are fairly rare. A GIANT MASS EXTINCTION CAUSED BY A GIANT LAVA FIELD EXPLODING KILLS ~95% OF LIFE ON EARTH. (359-252 mya)

- NEW animals get to try to diversify and do lots of crazy shit in the wake of SO MANY JOBS IN THE ENVIRONMENT GETTING CLEARED OUT. Reptiles diversify so fast you don’t know what the heck is happening. Other animals also take this opportunity to do new and weird shit. VOLCANOS EXPLODE, KILL ~80% OF LIFE (252-201 mya) 

- Dinosaurs finally get to do fun things now that other reptiles are no longer being weird. Modern life starts to show up. (201 mya-today). 

BASICALLY: 

- Land Animals had only just started to diversify and try out new funky things with their bodies in order to cope with the challenges of terrestrial life 

- Then a giant mass extinction killed everything. Mass exinctions are bad news for a lot of shit that’s specialized for the environment that’s been destroyed, BUT it allows things that make it through to have a chance to try out new shit to fill all those empty jobs in the environment 

- So, generalist reptiles, who hadn’t had a chance to do jack diddly squat before, now suddenly had the whole planet to play with. And the other animals around them, from mammal-cousins to amphibians to fish to insects to other invertebrates, also got to try out some new stuff in this new world 

- AND THEN ANOTHER MASS EXTINCTION HAPPENED RIGHT AFTER THAT RESET THE CLOCK AGAIN

This means that the TRIASSIC has some of THE MOST UNIQUE ANIMALS TO HAVE EVER EVOLVED IN EARTH’S HISTORY. Experiments were tried, rapidly, and MANY were lost RIGHT AWAY. It’s not like the life that evolved after that, which was honestly similar to what we see today - or those that evolved after the end-Cretaceous extinction, which was even more like today. These were weirdos that appeared and were wiped out before they could continue on to today 

And, because this was a rapid evolutionary period, we see the starts of many of today’s modern groups of animals, and they’re super weird, too! 

Honestly, the only weirder period in Earth’s history is the Cambrian Explosion, when animals first started doing anything notable at all 

On top of THAT, the ENTIRE EARTH was ONE GIANT SUPERCONTINENT called Pangea! Everyone could go everywhere! There were no terrestrial barriers to movement! So many creatures spread all over the globe. It was a HOTSPOT of biodiversity and a major turning point in Earth’s History

But, because the dinosaurs that evolved in the Triassic were kind of Meh, it doesn’t get enough press!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

So, we’re going to cover the Weird and Wonderful animals of the Triassic - we have a carefully curated list of Weirdos ready to take Tumblr by storm, and we hope you’ll enjoy learning about these amazing animals right along with us! You’ll have to wait till tomorrow to see them, though - don’t want to give away the surprises! 

GET! PUMPED! 

IT’S TRIASSIC TIME!

reblobbed, I am pumped for Triassic weirdness

i’m… so exhausted…

Earth Before Us: Ocean Renegades HIT SHELVES TODAY! And you can also buy it on Amazon if you’re a person who doesn’t leave your house, like me. It’s the next book in the Earth Before Us series after last year’s Dinosaur Empire, and it’s all about the Paleozoic, the very strange time before the dinosaurs evolved.

It starts with the dawn of animal life in the Cambrian and follows Earth’s creatures up onto land, where they become all the bugs and vertebrates we know and love. It’s extremely educational and fully illustrated!

Thanks bye!!

Celebrating the book launch with a tiny cake while working on the third and final book in the series. I’m sure you can guess what that one will be about…

Let me introduce you to three of my friends: hallucigenia, opabinia, and wiwaxia. They’re all from the Cambrian explosion, the period of time around 500 million years ago when life was just starting and was still trying to figure out questions like “how should a mouth work?” and “legs?”

Hallucigenia was about an inch long (most life back then was tiny, they were only a few eras removed from being single celled after all) and it had sixteen clawed legs, hard spines coming out of its back, and a wicked tentacle neckbeard. 

Opabinia was between two to three inches long and it had thirty fins along the side of its body, along with five mushroom shaped eyes on top of its head. By far though, its most interesting feature was its strange proboscis. Like a Dr. Moreau style mashup of an elephant and a lobster, the long nose terminated in a large claw that it used to grab prey and bring it to its backward facing mouth.

Finally, this is wiwaxia. This danger-artichoke was a two inch long armored slug-like creature with no head. In fact, its actual body was largely just its one massive foot. 

I find these animals interesting for three main reasons. First, it’s incredibly fascinating to see all of the potential paths that life on earth could have taken. Imagine an ocean filled with elephant lobsters! Second, whenever I feel like my life is going nowhere and all my choices are the wrong ones, I like to think that I’m in in my phase where I’m still developing hallucigenias and wiwaxias, and not yet making awesome things like butterflies or velociraptors. Finally - it serves as a stark reminder that if we ever find alien life, there is a fantastic chance it will look like nothing we’ve ever seen before - it might look more like one of these creatures than a human being. 

The Cambrian explosion is my go to chill out meditative tool. Look at all this teeming monster life, just living their monster lives. It makes me feel so so small.

Okay, I love your comparison with Cambrian life and like, having issues getting started yourself.  As a geology/biology double major, that speaks to me.

But how could you not mention my favorite one?  

Meet anomalocaris:

Its name means “strange shrimp”.  This is because it was first identified via its mandibles, which looked like a weird shrimp.  Later, someone realized “oh wait no all these parts we thought were different animals were actually the same one”.  The most beautiful origin story, in my opinion.  Anomalocaris was one of the first predators ever, and is my beautiful strange son.  Here’s what the mouthparts look like.

Yep.  That’s definitely a strange shrimp.

Also, if you want other weird-ass things to look at, look up things from the Ediacaran (aka before the Cambrian).  They’re so damn strange that they have their own phylum, Vendobionta.  They have forms of symmetry that we literally have never seen in anything else.  They look like plants but are animals.  I love them and they are all my children.

Anyways.  That’s my two cents.

I’m so glad other people share my spiritual connection to the Cambrian explosion