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No New World; crazy geography
Topic Started: Jul 1 2010, 10:49 PM (1,259 Views)
Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

This idea has been floating around in my head for a while. I haven't done any speculation on it, but I want to see what you all think of it:

What if North America and South America never existed? What if the only continents throughout history were Europe, Asia, Africa, Antarctica, and Australia? They Earth is the exact same size as our Earth, same gravity, same everything.

Save for biology and the absence of the Americas.

So how would the world be different without the Americas? Speculate both different creature evolution and, assuming humans still evolve, how human society deals with no Americas.
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Pando
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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Well, I'll start at the Permian. With the lack of the Americas, Pangea wouldn't be so dry, and so more would survive the P-Tr extinction. Although I am no geologist, so I can't track continent movement, but that's essential to figure out the life in this world.
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Kamidio
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The Game Master of the SSU:NC
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The Earth wouldn't be the same size ife the entire continents of N.A. and S.A. were gone.
SSU:NC - Finding a new home.
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

No no. The tectonic plates are still there. It's just that no land pokes out. The plates that constitute North and South America, instead of being land plates, are oceanic plates. So the plates still exist. It's just that North and South America, in this world, have always been (and will always be) underwater.




Pando, I never actually thought of that. Interesting idea with a lot of implications.




BTW, I'm making this an open project, since my area of expertise is NOT alternative evolution. Not at all.
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Toad of Spades
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Clorothod
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I guess with a less dry Pangea reptiles wouldn't get their big heyday in the Triassic because their water conservation wouldn't be as useful. So therapsids wouldn't go into decline from the dryness that came with the Triassic in our timeline.

However with none of those landmasses, the oceans would be larger but shallower. Shallow water heats up faster than deep water. So the world would be hot, more humid, and have a lower sea level. It would be interesting to see where land vertebrates could live.
Edited by Toad of Spades, Jul 1 2010, 11:56 PM.
Sorry Link, I don't give credit. Come back when you're a little...MMMMMM...Richer.

Bread is an animal and humans are %90 aluminum.
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Ook
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not a Transhuman
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i start with today animals.THere will be no horses,zebras and donkeys,no camels,llamas and canids.Hyenas still occupied canid niches..
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Pando
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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You can't start with todays animals though!

I realized that if mammal evolution came exactly as it did here, marsupials would be extinct. Reason: They were never able to go from Asia to Europe (well, they would be able to do that), but after Europe they wouldn't be able to go to the Americas, and then they wouldn't be able to go to Antarctica and then to Australia, and then when Europe crashed into Asia the last linneage of marsupials (opossums) would die as they did in this world.
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Toad of Spades
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Clorothod
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Would mammals exist at all though? A world that's hotter from a warmer ocean, has higher humidity, and a lower sea level would produce some major differences in the evolution of tetrapods.
Sorry Link, I don't give credit. Come back when you're a little...MMMMMM...Richer.

Bread is an animal and humans are %90 aluminum.
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Ook
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not a Transhuman
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and world will be ruled by giant singing bananas
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Pando
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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No randomness. We have a forum for that.

With a hot, wet world I'd expect all animals on land to have either scales or bare skin. Nothing like fur at all.

What about the fungi? There would be more fungi in the world, which some might take the niche of some animals.
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Ook
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not a Transhuman
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without america,there could be easily no mammals,reptiles etc.who knows 100% where animals and plants evolves..
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Pando
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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I was thinking about the origin of tetrapod evolution. Considering Tiktaalik was in Canada, tetrapod evolution would be different, either the fishapods evolve somewhere else, fishapods evolve but from another ancestor, or tetrapods don't evolve at all.
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Holben
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Rumbo a la Victoria

They probably evolved/arose in other palces as well, not just Canada. But y'know, the fossil record...

Synapsids rule the Mesozoic in this project, lads!
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Ook
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not a Transhuman
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why synapsids?
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Holben
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Rumbo a la Victoria

Wetter world in the Permian and Triassic => synapsids are beter adapted to a wettter world => synapsids outcompete other reptiles and survive, becoming dominant.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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