Dinosaurs

I was watching the History Channel a few nights ago and the topic was, well, not so uplifting–Armageddon. But the history of the Earth and all of the changes it has gone through in it's existence is just astonishing and interesting and all of the little-known facts I love learning about. The one tidbit of information that really surprised me was about the dinosaurs. Not just the dinosaurs as a whole, but each species.

Dinosaurs populated the Earth starting 250 million years ago to 65 million years ago before they went extinct. 185 million years they were the superior force on our planet. That is hard to imagine considering how short of a time humans have been around (that will have to be another topic.) When we think of the era of dinosaurs, we picture the T-Rex, Brachiosaurus, Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus, Velociraptor, Triceratops, etc. all roaming and reigning the entire 185 million years. I was very surprised to find that was not the case. Each individual species of dinosaur only existed for 2–3 million years before they completely died out.

Do you know what the word Dinosaur means? It's Greek for terrible lizard.

Now you’re a little smarter, Girlfriend — And so am I.

Ice Age

When we think about the “Ice Age,” we think of it as one single occurrence. But I was surprised to find out that was not the case. Where was I in Earth History class?

During the last 1 billion years of Earth’s history, the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, we have had many glacial advances and retreats. They are concentrated into four time intervals, not randomly distributed throughout Earth’s history like one might think.

Large, important glaciations occurred during the late Proterozoic (between 800 and 600 million years ago), the Pennsylvanian and Permian (between 350 and 250 million years ago) and during the late Neogene to Quaternary (the last 4 million years.) Less extensive glaciations occurred during portions of the Ordovician and Silurian (between 460 and 430 million years ago.) The last “Ice Age” ended around 15,000 years ago. Overall, however, there have been more than 60 glacial advances and retreats during the last 2 million years.

If "Ice Age" is used to refer to long, generally cool, intervals during which glaciers advance and retreat, we are still in one today. Our modern climate represents a very short, warm period between glacial advances. Scientist believe it may be climate change, but it also could be nothing more than a normal long-period climatic variation.

Now you’re a little smarter, Girlfriend — And so am I.