THE GROUND IS MOVING

CONTINENTAL DRIFT

Until 1800 it was thought that the continents any time in the history of Earth were on their today’s positions but then Alexander von Humboldt saw that the S.American eastern coast was fit perfectly with the western coast of Africa,in 1800 he chartographed them to get stuck together.So we know that the continents are moving,the tectonic plates were formed some 3 billion years ago.Then they move and change the face of the planet every day,for example the Atlantic ocean is opening just about our fingernails grow.Australia is moving north faster than every other land mass.450 million years ago a supercontinent Gondwana was formed by S.America,Africa,S.Europe,Australia and Antarctica,the other continents are small land masses near the equator.377 million years ago Antarctica,Africa and S.America are formed still Gondwana the other continents are islands all over the equator.250 million years ago all the continents are stuck together in the biggest continent that ever existed,Pangea.200 million years ago Pangea started to break off, N.America spitted from the supercontinent and started to move on.90 million years B.C. all the continents [except Europe and Asia]are alone in the bigger than today oceans.30 million years ago the continent are just a few miles from their today’s sits.Finally today are as we see them but how the world will like in 5,100 or 200 million years from now?The answer will write in some of the next articles.

A MYSTERIOUS PERIOD

CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD

The fish and once all the kind of invertebrates ruled the seas,the sky by birds and once reptiles and land by mammals and once all vertebrates.But is one question:have ever insects rule the earth?The answer is yes,at a time period called the carboniferous era that started 358mya and ended 298mya.Our story starts with the end of the Devonian era,when our ancestors start to look like more reptilian than amphibian.The plant life start to grow unstoppable,so our cold-blooded ancestors lose size because the climate became wetter and colder.But why the insects ruled at that time,it’s because the oxygen levels began to rise and the insects grow to gigantic sizes.The climate became much wetter and tropical so the amphibians lived in the swamps that were very hot and didn’t lose but take more size.The 50m tall may look like trees but they are actually relatives of ferns.Our 50cm long lizard ancestor called Petrolacosaurus is an easy target for many predators like Mesothelea spider,which  is at the size of a human head,she hide on her underground burrow and when sense prey,strike or the Arthropleura,a 3m long millipede that is omnivore,it ate 1 tonne of vegetation a year and when catch spiders,1m long scorpions and reptiles.it berried it’s shelf alive and when something go under it pop and catch it.The carboniferous era ended with a mass extinction,high oxygen levels mean that everything burns quickly,a storm burn almost all the swamp forests in the world and push oxygen levels down,wipedout all the giant insects and gave to the reptiles the chance of life,in the next period called the Permian the reptiles will rule the land,but in the end of this era 95% of life will be wiped out.

A LIFE EXPLOSION

THE CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION

The Cambrian explosion, wasn’t a explosion of a bomb,but an slow explosion of life that took place 542 million years ago in all around the world,but what happened,why life became so complex in just a few million years?This time we will see.Before the Cambrian period was the most mysterious period in the Earth’s history,the Ediacaran era,all we know about this period came from the Ediacara hills in Australia.But 550 million years ago volcanic activity warm the climate and pulled SO₂ in the oceans and killed almost all the creatures.But 8 million years later the Cambrian explosion took place.-542mya:Nothing yet lives on land except a 10cm worm with legs,but in the oceans it’s a different story.Much creatures lived in the water like Opabinia,the first big predator Anomalacaris,Wiwaxia a primitive snail and our ancestor a 2cm fish called Pikaia,the first animal with a spine.The most of this creatures are Trilobites,there are over 20.000 kinds of them until all of them became extinct 250 million years ago.But why the organisms became in just a few million years so complex?The answer is because right before the life became so complex a global ice age ‘’Snowball Earth’’melted and some microscopic single cells that survived it start to stick together.Oxygen levels were already high in the water so the cells stick together and formed animals.By the time they grow bigger and larger until the Cambrian explosion when the creatures became more big and complex as never before,this event that never happened after it and will never happen again.He laid the evolution of every living or extinct creature today including me and you.