Have you ever thought about where your backyard would have been during the time of Pangaea? Now, there’s an exciting way to find out. A group of Earth scientists has revamped Paleolatitude.org, a tool that shows how any spot on Earth has shifted over 320 million years due to continental drift.
This new tool gives fresh perspectives on fossils. For example, a site in Winterswijk, the Netherlands, has fossils dating back 245 million years. Surprisingly, these fossils indicate that the climate then resembled today’s Persian Gulf rather than Eastern Europe. This wasn’t just due to a warmer Earth; rather, geographic changes played a significant role.
The Utrecht Paleogeography Model, the backbone of the updated tool, reveals that the Winterswijk location was at a latitude akin to present-day Arabia, as shown in a video where the Netherlands is highlighted in pink.
Co-author Emilia Jarochowska, a paleontologist at Utrecht University, shares, “With this new model, we’re not just looking at time; we’re considering space too.” This multi-dimensional view helps scientists better understand biodiversity’s resilience today.
The tool now includes a vast paleogeographic model that spans 320 million years, highlighting geographical features that have changed over time. Not just the continents but the poles have shifted, too, with updated paleomagnetic models.
The platform allows users to export data, create graphs, and even upload their data for analysis. To illustrate what the tool can do, researchers mapped a biodiversity gradient for the late Jurassic, using data from about 34,000 Upper Jurassic marine fossils. They found that certain latitudes had richer biodiversity compared to others.
Jarochowska emphasizes, “We can see how global biodiversity reacted during past mass extinctions, and which species thrived or vanished.” This insight could help us understand how current climate shifts might affect today’s biodiversity.
The team is even looking to expand this model to cover events like the Cambrian explosion that occurred 550 million years ago. For now, you can explore the historical journey of your own locale by entering its location here.
This research appears in PLOS One.
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