MAPS SHOW HOW NORTH AMERICA LOOKED LIKE 500 MILLION YEARS AGO

If you ever decide to travel back in time 500 million years, make sure you take these maps along with you.  The continent did not look like anything you are familiar with now.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2434633/What-North-America-looked-like-550-million-years-ago.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What you'd find 500 million years ago: 

 

500 million years ago was at the end of the period called Cambrian Explosion, when life forms proliferated into countless species, in accelerated evolution.

For most of the nearly 4 billion years that life has existed on Earth, evolution produced little beyond bacteria, plankton, and multi-celled algae.

 

But beginning about 600 million years ago in the Precambrian, the fossil record speaks of more rapid change.

 

First, there was the rise and fall of mysterious creatures of the Ediacaran fauna, named for the fossil site in Australia where they were first discovered.

 

Some of these animals may have belonged to groups that survive today, but others don't seem at all related to animals we know.

Then, between about 570 and 530 million years ago, another burst of diversification occurred, with the eventual appearance of the lineages of almost all animals living today.

 

This stunning and unique evolutionary flowering is termed the "Cambrian explosion," taking the name of the geological age in whose early part it occurred.

 

But it was not as rapid as an explosion: the changes seems to have happened in a range of about 30 million years, and some stages took 5 to 10 million years. 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/4/l_034_02.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And more: 

Interactive website showing you the history of life on Earth - you move a red marker along billions and millions of years and the page changes accordingly.

http://exploringorigins.org/timeline.html


*******************************************************************************