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 Thaaaar
she blows! Again!
We are
standing on the plains of a chunk of continent that broke free from
the Gondwanaland supercontinent about 10 million years ago and has
been roaring northward at the screaming rate of several centimeters
per year ever since! In about 50 million years, this chunk of land
will crash into Asia and form the Himalaya Mountains. About 65 million
years from now, people will live here, and the place will be called
India.
Right now,
however, things are a bit unsettled here! About a million years
ago, this piece of land passed over a "Hot Spot" in the
Earth's mantle. Watch the animation at the top of the page carefully
to see what happened. (Hit "Reload" to run the animation
again.). First you see a cross section of the Earth. A huge mass
of molten rock rises up from the depths of the Earth and pushes
up against the surface. This causes the surface to bulge slightly
and to form huge cracks in the ground. That was bad enough, but
now gobs of molten rock flow upward through the giant cracks in
an endless series of volcanic eruptions. As our view changes to
see the scene from above, we see the land covered with layer upon
layer of lava. Also huge clouds of dust, sulfuric acid droplets,
and noxious gases from the eruptions fill the air -- enough to cover
the whole Earth!
Cough! Cough!
Hack!
As a result,
the world's weather for the last hundred thousand years or so has
changed back and forth from fair to poor to downright miserable
over and over and over again. The air and oceans are full of dust
and poison gases. Forecasts say this will go on for another hundred
thousand years! Man! How's a self-respecting Dino supposed to survive?
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