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What did Earth look like X million years ago? (dinosaurpictures.org)
typpo 713 days ago [-]
Hi HN, I built this. It's been posted several times before, so I can answer some common questions:

How does this work? I adapted GPlates [1], an academic project that creates desktop software for geologists to investigate plate tectonic data.

Is the geocoding accurate? Even though plate tectonic models return precise results, you should consider the plots approximate within ~100km. In my tests I found that model results can vary significantly. I chose this model because it is widely cited and covers the greatest length of time.

How should I interpret the maps/colors? The graphics that wrap the globe are provided by Dr. Christopher Scotese, a geologist who runs the PALEOMAP project. You can learn more about the project and the creation of the rasters here [2]. You might also notice some old national borders. I just work with what I can get!

Why can't it look up my location? Your location probably didn't exist at the time, geologically speaking. Try switching to closer to present day (e.g. 66 Mya)

Where are all the dinosaurs? Despite the title of this post, the visualization isn't really meant to show an exhaustive list of dinosaurs or fossils (the list doesn't even show on mobile). If you want to dig into data on fossils near you, check out the Paleobiology Database Navigator [3].

[1] https://www.gplates.org

[2] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-q0WIa7ofISFHyBe4UxvN8DIPs8...

[3] https://paleobiodb.org/navigator/

BrissyCoder 713 days ago [-]
This doesn't appear to work for me. When I enter a city name it just places a red sphere on the globe. Nothing about dinosaurs.
arthurcolle 713 days ago [-]
Yeah same - I think the post title was recently edited because the original title was very explicit about it showing you dinosaurs that were found in your area. I live in Miami, so I typed that in and was waiting to see the cousins of all the strange cold-blooded oddities I see everyday and it was exactly as you describe.

I recently saw one of those flappy neck lizards maybe 3 months ago so was expecting to see that dino from Jurassic Park when he yeets that fat guy out of existence but instead just got the red dot.

Where can I file a JIRA ticket?

713 days ago [-]
bombcar 713 days ago [-]
I clicked around on soemthing and got a list. Around me was some huge whale Dino.

First I had to set the date to the Jurassic.

poulpy123 712 days ago [-]
they don't appears when I'm using my cell photne but they do when I'm on my computer. also you have to selct a date when thre was dinosaurs
shmde 713 days ago [-]
It was clickbait
tills13 713 days ago [-]
one suggestion is that rotation should be disabled by default, disable itself when you manually move the globe, or at least not hidden behind a toggle

otherwise very cool

gertlex 713 days ago [-]
I found the rotation inconvenient as well.

As the instructions in the bottom suggest, arrow keys can be used to skip over the times, which was good. It would be neat try having the up/down change the time (as they currently do) and left/right (instead of also navigating the times) do east/west rotation (or vice versa).

nsrose7224 713 days ago [-]
This is really cool, where is SnowBall earth at ~700M years ago though? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth
323 713 days ago [-]
Is the rotation lock when viewing North/South Pole intentional?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal_lock

zamadatix 713 days ago [-]
It allows for north to always be up without causing mayhem when you try to move over the poles. The alternative is to allow free movement but no guarantee on orientation which can get confusion on things like this.
davelacy 713 days ago [-]
This is one of the coolest web apps I've seen... awesome work!
knasmai 712 days ago [-]
Thanks for building this! Is there any way to predict/visualize what it'll look like X years into the future? That'd be pretty cool to look at.
arunix 712 days ago [-]
Would it be possible to show the Earth at X million years in the future?
shagie 713 days ago [-]
One of the neat bits from this is going to 340 Mya and look at where the Appalachian mountain range runs.

You can hike part of the Appalachian trail in Spain https://www.geologiadesegovia.info/the-international-appalac... and Ireland https://iatulsterireland.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Appalachian_Trai...

3A2D50 713 days ago [-]
I have relatives with property along a river in Bath county Virginia. Across the river stands a ~200ft high cliff with caves that go for miles. I was told that they were formed by the ocean. That explanation bothered me because the caves face west. Now it makes sense! They have also discovered seashell fossils by the river!
divbzero 713 days ago [-]
Earth’s land and water hemispheres [1] were particularly stark in contrast back in the time of the dinosaurs. Are there geological theories as to how the asymmetry formed? Could major impact events from astronomical objects have played a role?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_and_water_hemispheres

shagie 713 days ago [-]
In digging on it, Ancient Supercontinents and the Paleogeography of Earth looks to be an interesting book https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780128185339/ancient-sup...

This appears to be part of a geologic scale cycle - https://www.livescience.com/38218-facts-about-pangaea.html

> The current configuration of continents is unlikely to be the last. Supercontinents have formed several times in Earth's history, only to be split off into new continents. Right now for instance, Australia is inching toward Asia, and the eastern portion of Africa is slowly peeling off from the rest of the continent.

> Based on the emergence of other supercontinents in the Precambrian supereon (4.5 billion to 541 million years ago), it appears that supercontinents occur periodically every 750 million years, according to a 2012 study in the journal Gondwana Research (opens in new tab).

> Most scientists believe that the supercontinent cycle is largely driven by circulation dynamics in the mantle, according to a 2010 article in the Journal of Geodynamics (opens in new tab).

Water/land hemispheres would then be an artifact of that cycle. Given that cycle, it will happen again - https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-think-earth-s-next-s...

dredmorbius 713 days ago [-]
The coal fields in the present-day United States, Britain, Spain, France, and Silesia were all once part of the contiguous Appalachian range.
shagie 711 days ago [-]
In one of those interesting coincidences, the coal miners of the British Isles immigrated to the Appalachia area in the US to mine coal.
throwaway4837 713 days ago [-]
Dang, wish this title was updated to be less misleading. I spent way too long looking for functionality that didn't exist. The author (not same person as poster) posted in the comments:

> Where are all the dinosaurs? Despite the title of this post, the visualization isn't really meant to show an exhaustive list of dinosaurs or fossils (the list doesn't even show on mobile).

That said, this is a really cool visualization of how the water fill and plates evolved over time. Love it!

dang 713 days ago [-]
If anyone wants to suggest a more accurate and neutral title, we can maybe change it. I don't understand what's wrong with the current title ("Which dinosaurs lived in your hometown?")

Edit: I think I get it now and have changed the title above.

tiffanyh 713 days ago [-]
I never realized until seeing this 3D globe that literally an entire side of the earth only had water.

I've seen drawings of Pangaea before but never in a 3-dimensional sphere.

Just interesting to see and entire 1/2 of the earth with nothing but ocean.

I wonder how common this is on other planets.

padobson 713 days ago [-]
ineedasername 713 days ago [-]
To be pedantic about it, nearly 3/4 of the earth are still nothing but ocean!
323 713 days ago [-]
I remember reading about how it's periodic, continents split apart then come together again in a cycle. Not in the same configuration obviously.
bronikowski 713 days ago [-]
Only 600 millions years ago my Central European city was a beach front to the mega-Ocean. Would be sweet to see it but the lack of infrastructure could get annoying.

Very fun project.

duxup 713 days ago [-]
The in and out shallow seas in N. America provide a lot of beachfront ... under water ... beach front and on and off again activity.

Amazing how much a few hundred million years will change things.

eslaught 713 days ago [-]
Reading through the descriptions of each time period, it suddenly struck me that I had no idea Earth had so many mass extinctions. It's a bit mind-blowing that the one that put an end to the dinosaurs was not even the worst (by percentage of species killed off).

I also somehow hadn't appreciated that multi-cellular animals existed before multi-cellular plants.

m0ngr31 713 days ago [-]
For living in "Dinosaurland", the list of dinosaurs that lived near me is pretty low
Ensorceled 713 days ago [-]
Same with anything around the Badlands in Albert ... 2 or 3 listed.
afrcnc 713 days ago [-]
Ok boyz... we're going digging in the weekend then!
divbzero 713 days ago [-]
Are there sci-fi stories with the premise that a character wakes up transported to a different planet except it’s later revealed that it’s actually Earth in a distant time?
bolasanibk 713 days ago [-]
dilippkumar 713 days ago [-]
Not quite what you are looking for, but the Malazan series has some stories spanning extremely large time scales through which multiple intelligent species evolve into existence and fade away.

It is by far, the best series I've read. Book 1 is hard to get into, and doesn't reward the reader as much, but stick with the series. It's worth it.

spiralx 707 days ago [-]
Stephen Erikson is an anthropologist and archaeologist which explains a lot of the deep historical depth to MBotF. Apparently he went on a dig in Mongolia between books nine and ten and almost died from a stomach bug and then a spider bite!

> And there was even a fear of dying before I could finish it! I remember being struck by a quote I read somewhere, when Robert Jordan was in his last few years, at a signing where he signed a book for an elderly woman who expressed a fear of her dying before he finished the series. And of course the bitter irony being Jordan himself dying before he could finish the series. And the closer I got to it, there was a disastrous decision to do some archaeology in Mongolia between books nine and ten, and then that almost killing me, from a stomach bug, and then a spider bite, it just started getting ridiculous. And then I realised if I keeled over in Mongolia between book nine and ten, wherever my gravestone was in the world people would annually piss on it, so I thought okay, I got to get this thing finished. And came back, I was living in Falmouth at the time, so I came back to Cornwall and just wrote my ass off and got it done.

drfuchs 713 days ago [-]
[Spoiler Alert:] Original 1968 “Planet of the Apes”? It's a great visual reveal in the last moments of the film; no dialog needed.
thaumasiotes 713 days ago [-]
> It's a great visual reveal in the last moments of the film; no dialog needed.

Dialog is present and very famous, though. ("You maniacs! You blew it up!")

drfuchs 713 days ago [-]
I’d argue that those lines were mysterious until the subsequent closing shot that functions as the visual punch line. At least ten-year-old me didn’t get the earlier hints.
rspeele 713 days ago [-]
The whole series of movies (well, the pre-2000 iterations) was recently free to watch on YouTube. They're all cheesy but the original one holds up reasonably well.

Feels like a movie-length version of a classic Twilight Zone episode, which makes sense, considering Rod Serling wrote the first draft of the film's script.

slobiwan 713 days ago [-]
You mean besides Planet of the Apes?
smogcutter 713 days ago [-]
Not a planet of the apes traveler trope, but in his “book of the new Sun” trilogy Gene Wolfe leaves it as an exercise for the reader to figure out that it’s set in a far-far future South America.
s1artibartfast 713 days ago [-]
what are the clues for south america. The river?
smogcutter 711 days ago [-]
The hints are pretty sparse because Severian doesn’t know where he is any more than the reader does, but Wolfe confirmed it in an interview here: https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/wolfe46interview.htm

But yeah the river is a big hint. The Paraná in Argentina is a good candidate, and it’s easy to rule out other big delta rivers like the Nile or Mississippi. Iirc Severian also uses the word “pampas” for plains, and at some point we learn there’s a jungle zone to the north, with an arid region beyond.

anonymfus 713 days ago [-]
In Doctor Who, one of the Series 12 (2020) stories had that twist, and what stands this story apart from almost all other uses of this trope is that the twist was not an ending, and we see how characters process that reveal.

Please be careful if you gonna read TV tropes page linked in a sibling comment, as the title of that episode is in the list of examples on that page in Live-Action TV section, so you can accidentally spoil yourself all the fun.

govg 713 days ago [-]
You might want to check out the Time Odyssey series. It was written by Arthur C Clarke (along with Stephen Baxter) and deals with similar themes.
datavirtue 713 days ago [-]
Land of the Lost. I suggest the Wil Farrell movie version.
gus_massa 713 days ago [-]
If I change the date in the top right, does it change the list of dinosaurs or just change the map?

It would be nice to show small pictures of the dinosaurs instead of just links to the main page of each dinosaur (that has a few pictures).

dtagames 713 days ago [-]
It doesn't seem to. It does, however, change the epoch description in the bottom left, which is well-written and informative. The arrow keys are cool for moving through eras.
necovek 713 days ago [-]
I like how this has former Yugoslavia (including Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia) borders :)

Belgrade only got rid of the water when dinosaurs were already extinct according to this.

throwaway743 713 days ago [-]
Not seeing any dinosaur info on mobile. Using Android and FF browser
elvis70 713 days ago [-]
If you are using a computersaurus with a 4:3 screen like me, you will have to zoom in to get the list of fossils.
throwaway290 713 days ago [-]
I can't help but take depictions of dinosaurs like https://dinosaurpictures.org/Streptospondylus-pictures at face value, until I catch myself and remember they may be quite wrong considering we are limited to fossils: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/science-m... (tl;dr https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/natashaumer/dinosaur-an...).
713 days ago [-]
srcreigh 713 days ago [-]
See here for the dinosaurs by region [1]

[1]: https://dinosaurpictures.org/

orthecreedence 713 days ago [-]
These are all renderings. Why no photos?
the_af 713 days ago [-]
> These are all renderings. Why no photos?

Alas! It would seem the Time Travel machine somehow erases the photos during the return trip, so renderings is all they can do.

dredmorbius 713 days ago [-]
It's actually a licensing issue, it turns out.

Some what complicated by jurisdictional and statutes of limitations issues.

fluctor 713 days ago [-]
Photos of fossils?
superkuh 713 days ago [-]
Thanks! I wish this had a little finer geolocation than just "north america". The webgl site in the main link was a no-go.
pachico 713 days ago [-]
Could not resolve location for "Barcelona, Catalonia, ES"

:(

ninth_ant 713 days ago [-]
That’s what it says for my hometown unless I switch to a more recent year. The error message is a bit confusing I think, the tip to change the year isn’t super obvious.

Interestingly, Barcelona doesn’t show up until you hit 0 years ago, so perhaps it’s location is extremely recent on the tectonic scale?

gerdesj 713 days ago [-]
Really. It found Yeovil (UK) which is smaller than your neighbour - BDN!
kristopolous 713 days ago [-]
It'd be nice if it followed land and not just location.

I'm sure it's more complicated then I think, but this model is kinda silly

gerdesj 713 days ago [-]
Bloody plate tectonics! When you watch geo[thingie] at this speed you start to appreciate how there is no such thing as terra firma. Take the UK and Ireland - thanks to sea level changes it expands and contracts pretty madly and that's only change in one dimension. At several points it was part of the European land mass and faster than you can say Brexit the Dogger bank floods over and Neanderthals got wet feet.

If you also tried to follow land, you'd have to account for subduction and whatever the opposite of that is on continental scales and land created by volcanoes and lost by volcanoes exploding etc on a smaller scale.

kristopolous 713 days ago [-]
Absolutely. I'm certainly not a geologist and I know it's clearly not a 1:1 mapping, but certainly some thing can be said about, say the India shaped floating land mass that drifts towards where India is located in the past 100 million years and if you wanted to say where Mumbai was, the answer, if there is one, is probably found somewhere on that giant island and not at the exact place it is today

There should be something better than this.

termios 713 days ago [-]
nothing is showing up for me. luckily i already know the answer: bryozoans, bryozoans, and more bryozoans
thamer 713 days ago [-]
I also wasn't seeing anything, until I used "⌘ A" to select all text, and noticed that the list of animals or plants for the city I selected was displayed at the top left, in white text over a white background. Selecting all made it slightly more visible, enough for me to read the text.

Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/VQjfvQZ.png

typpo 713 days ago [-]
Thanks for the screenshot. There might some weird three.js/webgl thing going on, because that background is supposed to be black with stars. Any errors in the console? Just put out a potential fix.
thamer 712 days ago [-]
No errors, but two regular log messages and two warnings:

    webParams: {startingYear: 260, surfacePoints: Array(0), camera: {…}}
    (warning) THREE.ImageUtils.loadTexture has been deprecated. Use THREE.TextureLoader() instead.
    > Jb.loadTexture @ three.min.js:990
    > createSphere…
    lastAddressFailed true
    (warning) THREE.ImageUtils.loadTexture has been deprecated. Use THREE.TextureLoader() instead.
    > Jb.loadTexture @ three.min.js:990
    > createClouds…
Edit: I figured something was missing so I tried disabling uBlock Origin in case it was blocking some assets, but that didn't help.
asveikau 713 days ago [-]
I think it's interesting that at 260 million years ago, Europe and the eastern US seem to be at relatively the same distance as today (maybe a little closer), but you have most of Africa wedged in the middle of them.
causality0 713 days ago [-]
This is great in theory but in practice we just don't have enough fossils for it to be truly interesting. It's more like "Which dinosaurs lived seven hundred miles away from your hometown?"
jasim 713 days ago [-]
There have never been dinosaurs in my town. We've always maintained a big board in both local and regional languages that said "DINOSAURS KEEP OUT".
aksss 713 days ago [-]
Lame, no worky. Maybe cuz I’m browsing on a phone instead of computer? I get no list, the only thing that changes with time period is a general description.
nawitus 713 days ago [-]
Try another city. The site didn't show anything for my location.
orthecreedence 713 days ago [-]
I always think the waves on Pangea's coast must have been huge. All that wind blowing and no continents to stop the waves from forming.
manthedudeguy 713 days ago [-]
heckelson 713 days ago [-]
I just had fun putting a pin into my hometown and discovering that it was at the equator at some point (300 mio years ago)!
moffkalast 713 days ago [-]
Fish, apparently.
ggm 713 days ago [-]
Path trace of continental drift for chosen point, across some time window?
whatever1 713 days ago [-]
If they were still around we would get to see Buffalo fried Fruitadens wings.
sammalloy 713 days ago [-]
Cretaceous FTW. Looks like I’ll need to keep working on my time machine.
smm11 713 days ago [-]
There must have been a lot in Los Angeles, given the oil derricks. All that liquid T-Rex goodness. No idea where this hunk of land was 60+ million years ago.
takinola 713 days ago [-]
You're probably just making a joke but in case others are wondering, your SUV is almost certainly not powered by liquified T-Rexs. Instead, most hydrocarbons we have today come from plants ie plankton-like creatures. Also, the position of hydrocarbons is not dictated by the population at that point in time on the earth's surface. Instead, think of the earth like a giant porous sponge with the occasional impervious rock formation that traps the liquid. The hydrocarbons accumulate in those traps over time and lead to the reservoirs we now tap for oil.
unixhero 712 days ago [-]
They all ran Xfree86
RadixDLT 713 days ago [-]
watch Prehistoric Planet - Season 1 to find out
rufus_foreman 713 days ago [-]
Pat Buchanan.
99_00 713 days ago [-]
Anyone else love Dino Dana?
Simon_O_Rourke 713 days ago [-]
We've still got AT&T and an IBM in my hometown, there's probably even a few PHP web-shops there too!
vehemenz 713 days ago [-]
PHP is more like birds. Technically, they're dinosaurs, but they've evolved and stayed relevant after Perl, etc. went extinct.
713 days ago [-]
boringg 713 days ago [-]
I believe you mean they are more like pterosaurs
sophacles 713 days ago [-]
I bet they mean birds, aka modern dinosaurs. This is a good 'aka' because dinosaur made baby dinosaurs who grew up to make their own baby dinosaurs. Each generation was slightly different than the last and after millions of years, the baby dinosaurs were named birds!
boringg 713 days ago [-]
Well any dinosaur that existed and flew wasn't actually a dinosaur but rather a pterosaur. However I did a quick spot check and realize that modern day birds didn't evolved from pterosaurs but rather from dinosaurs surprised. So I stand corrected.
sophacles 713 days ago [-]
> Well any dinosaur that existed and flew wasn't actually a dinosaur but rather a pterosaur.

I believe you mean: "but rather a pterosaur or bird".

Tuna-Fish 713 days ago [-]
And just to emphasize: This is nitpicky, but it is correct. In the phylogenic sense, birds are dinosaurs. It's not that there used to be dinosaurs, some of which evolved into birds and there are no dinosaurs left anymore, but rather there are about 18000 extant dinosaur species in the world today, it's just that they have feathers and most of them fly.
boringg 712 days ago [-]
To be further nitpicky - I believe the current theory is that most dinosaurs did have feathers.

I believe that birds are descendents from theropods and yes phylogenic-wise dinosaurs. However that seems a bit semantic.

boringg 712 days ago [-]
Actually no there were no birds in existence while there were dinosaurs only millions of years after their extinction per current evidence.
712 days ago [-]
at-fates-hands 713 days ago [-]
We still have 3M who up until recently had a business formal dress code for all employees. I know several friends who turned down jobs because they were not cool with having to wear a suit the entire day they were coding.
tiffanyh 713 days ago [-]
You must not be referring to their HQ.

Because AT&T is in Texas and IBM is in New York.

713 days ago [-]
gwbas1c 713 days ago [-]
It it doesn't answer the question, "Which dinosaurs lived in my hometown?"

Seriously, I clicked on the link thinking I'd be able to get a list of the dinosaurs that are believed to have lived in my hometown. As cool as this link is, it doesn't answer "Which dinosaurs lived in my hometown?"

manachar 713 days ago [-]
If you enter a place it will provide a list of fossils potentially nearby.

It seems limited and not quite as cool as as say, showing a field guide of dinos in your area during a time period.

chucksta 713 days ago [-]
Thats what it does, you can adjust the year at the top
cududa 713 days ago [-]
Good to know it wasn't just me who couldn't find an option to answer the actual thing it purports to tell you
Ensorceled 713 days ago [-]
Apparently 0 dinosaurs roamed the area around Toronto, Ontario. We weren't even underwater at the time.
OJFord 713 days ago [-]
Others are commenting like it does though, I couldn't get a dinosaur list either fwiw.
Ensorceled 713 days ago [-]
Depends on the place. Enter a town/city where dinosaurs fossils were found and it will show a couple. But even the few fossil hotbeds I checked will only show 2 or 3.
iambateman 713 days ago [-]
This link was extraordinarily fascinating, and I learned a lot but it didn’t deliver on that promise for me, either.
pvg 713 days ago [-]
That's because the poster made up a clickbait title, which they shouldn't have done.
dcdc123 713 days ago [-]
No, it does list the dinosaurs, it is just a very limited database. Most cities I tried had none but Dallas, TX for example listed a few.
pvg 713 days ago [-]
The title of the site is not the submitted title.
pbiggar 713 days ago [-]
It shows the dinosaurs in a very light grey over the white background. You can find it just below the city search box.
libraryatnight 713 days ago [-]
I was expecting to be able to click the globe where I live and see Dinosaur info.

seems you have to use the search for place.

713 days ago [-]
713 days ago [-]
dataspun 713 days ago [-]
equivalent to spam in its current iteration
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