![]() Pangaea formed roughly 335,000,000 years ago and existed as a single landmass for approximately 160,000,000 years. These clusters are known as supercontinents the most famous of which is Pangaea. This shifting can also bring several continents into close enough proximity to form a single landmass above sea level. Solomon, Chair NASA Solid Earth Science Working Group, 2002ĭriven by heat from the core, convection currents churn the solid silicates of the mantle, pushing and pulling the thin plates of crust, bringing continents together and tearing them apart in cycles which can last for hundreds of millions of years. "Our planet is a restless home." ~ Sean C. Referred to as shaligram or saligram, their ghostly remains illustrate the ceaseless fury of our dynamic planet, which drives continents apart and sends seas rushing in only to turn about and heave these unfathomable depths upward to become the very roof of the world.Īge of Dinosaurs marks the first appearance of this specimen in a Mini Museum Collection. The logarithmic spirals often found within these smooth stones are considered abstract representations of the divine in some traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Revealed by natural erosion, the stones tumbled into rivers and streams, churning for millenia, until they reach lower altitudes and are collected by locals and pilgrims alike. Composed primarily of ammonite and belemnite fossils, this layer of dark shale was lifted tens of thousands of feet above sea level as the Indian subcontinent crashed into Asia. The specimen in Age of Dinosaurs is a fragment of the Tethys Ocean floor recovered from the Himalayas along the banks of the Gandaki River in Nepal. OCEAN FLOOR, CEPHALOPOD FOSSIL, INITIAL FORMATION OF THE NEO-TETHYS: TRIASSIC PERIOD (c. Remnants of the Tethys remain in the Mediterranean, Caspian, Black, and Aral Seas. Whether the tropical effect of this ocean gateway played a role in the enormous size attained by dinosaurs is still uncertain but it is an area of intense study. This warm and relatively shallow seaway was a powerful transport current for the global circulation of floral and faunal elements. During the Jurassic Period, the shifting continents compressed the Tethys to form an equatorial seaway stretching from today's Caribbean Islands to what is now the Himalayas. The latest successor to the Tethyan Sea is the present Mediterranean." ~ Eduard Suess, Austrian Geologist, "Are Great Ocean Depths Permanent" (1893)Īt the beginning of the Mesozoic Era, the Tethys Ocean was bound by the great Panthalassa Ocean within the cradle of the supercontinent Pangaea. This ocean we designate by the name "Tethys," after the sister and consort of Oceanus. The folded and crumpled deposits of this ocean stand forth to heaven in Tibet, Himalaya, and the Alps. "Modern geology permits us to follow the first outlines of the history of a great ocean which once stretched across part of Eurasia. ![]()
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