See how your state has changed over 750 million years with interactive map of Earth
Ever wonder how the places you frequent looked like 750 million years ago?
This interactive map lets you plug in any address to see how it has changed between the Cryogenian Period, when icy deserts dominated the Earth’s landscape, to the present day.
Ancient Earth is the work of Ian Webster, who used data from the PALEOMAP Project, an initiative that captures the evolving life on Earth, to create the map.
The interactive tool offers 26 timelines where users can plug in an address, landmark, or a state or country, and then pick a date ranging from zero to 750 million years ago. There’s also a brief history explaining each time period landscape.
Start at the beginning of the map’s timeline and witness Earth go from blobs of uninhabited land to a massive supercontinent and then the seven continents we know today.
For example, 750 million years ago, Midtown Manhattan was in the middle of a giant icy landmass “during the greatest ice age known on Earth.” Travel 500 million years and New York City is a tiny island in the southern hemisphere.
Go back 540 million years ago and you’ll find a completely different Yosemite National Park in the Early Cambrian Period when “a mass extinction event created a dramatic expansion of animal life in the sea.” Instead of giant sequoia trees and luscious greenery, you’ll see a barren, brownish landscape.
Flash back 280 million years and you’ll discover that in place of the Lincoln Memorial, landmasses merged to form the supercontinent Pangaea. Polar ice caps and deserts lined the area instead of the famous tourist attraction you see today.
This story was originally published September 10, 2021 at 4:29 PM with the headline "See how your state has changed over 750 million years with interactive map of Earth."
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