• sudoshakes@reddthat.com
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          6 hours ago

          Older than trees.

          Older than bones.

          Drones from land masses that don’t exist anymore.

          There are Appalachian mountains with coal seams and those are the younger ones, because they formed in some places before the land biomass that made coal and oil existed.

          They contain layers of fossils from ancient whales back to small crustaceans.

          480 million years ago trilobites were being heft out of the sea by the Appalachians.

          The Appalachians existed for 20 million years before bearing witness to a million year long meteor shower from the L-chondrite debris, and witnessed the earth with rings of comet orbiting for eons.

    • gigastasio@sh.itjust.works
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      12 hours ago

      To the extent that a portion of the mountain chain that formed the Appalachian Mountains is in Europe. The Appalachians were a part of the Central Pangean mountain system, which makes them older than the Atlantic Ocean.

      They’ve seen some shit.

      • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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        10 hours ago

        That’s kind of awesome to think about.

        I’m picturing myself on Pangea. The mountains in front of me are taller than the Himalayas today. These are the Appalachians. Oh no, a dinosaur! Look out, duck! Huh, that’s not a duck that’s a QUETZALCOATLUS! Everybody run! How can we outrun a QUETZALCOATLUS?!?!?! AAAHHHHHH.

        Isn’t it beautiful?

        • DoubleDongle@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          Wikipedia says they date back 480 million years, during the Ordovician period. I think the atmosphere would have been pretty breathable, but plants wouldn’t conquer the land in a serious way for at least another 60 million years or so, with bugs following them. Nothing saw those mountains. If you time-traveled to the Pangean mountains, you would be the only being to ever observe them in their formative years. Eons would pass before the first plant set root at their feet. The sterile and desolate emptiness would be beyond human experience.

          • Zwiebel@feddit.org
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            2 hours ago

            The couple of people who’ve been on the moon have seen that kind of emptiness

          • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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            6 hours ago

            but plants wouldn’t conquer the land in a serious way for at least another 60 million years or so

            Eons would pass before the first plant set root at their feet.

            Pretty sure the mountains will still be there. Spoiler alert. I started at the end of the book.

            you would be the only being to ever observe them in their formative years.

            The sterile and desolate emptiness would be beyond human experience.

            That’s badass though. Except that we might be returning to that sterile and desolate emptiness here shortly.

            Also, don’t forget that fungi, algae, and lichen colonized dry land before the plants arrived, paving the way for them by eating rocks and pooping dirt.

        • rockerface🇺🇦@lemmy.cafe
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          7 hours ago

          Sharks are older than the North Star. Not as in Polaris wasn’t pointing north yet when the sharks evolved, but as in it hadn’t formed yet.

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        And through it all, the mountains can all agree…trump is the biggest piece of shit they’ve ever heard of.