Re:What did Earth look like X million years ago?
by geoalchimista on Monday August 06, 2018 @01:49AM
(#17695326)
And palaeontology.
There may be tens of thousand of research papers behind each map shown in the OP. It is like solving a puzzle. At location X, Scientist A finds some clues in plate tectonics, Scientist B finds something in geochemistry, and Scientist C finds something in fossil records. Then they piece them together and if these stories all tell the same thing without a serious conflict, you can construct a point on that map. Now imagine doing this for thousands of different regions involving several generations of scientists, you get nice maps like these.
There may be tens of thousand of research papers behind each map shown in the OP. It is like solving a puzzle. At location X, Scientist A finds some clues in plate tectonics, Scientist B finds something in geochemistry, and Scientist C finds something in fossil records. Then they piece them together and if these stories all tell the same thing without a serious conflict, you can construct a point on that map. Now imagine doing this for thousands of different regions involving several generations of scientists, you get nice maps like these.
This Wikipedia page would be a nice read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Earth.