• 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.