In The Beginning
Dinosaurs may have been in gray area. Yellow area was a great sea.
How old is the earth?
Many scientists say the earth is more than four billion years old. Some Bible scholars insist the world can’t be more than six thousand or so years old, or else the “begats” of the Bible won’t work out. Search “long term creationism” or “short term creationism” for more. Our opinion: the God capable of creating and managing the universe could readily be God of five billion years.
Moving continents, changing climates
It’s easy to assume the hills, valleys and rivers have always been where they are now. Not so. Our bit of Southernmost Illinois has not always been surrounded by the nation’s two largest rivers. And the climate (Al Gore, pay attention…) has varied from very hot to very cold.
Timeline
4500 mya: (million years ago) earth was formed
3000 mya: land masses were cool enough to form solid ground
1100 mya: Formation of the supercontinent Rodinia
750 mya: Breakup of supercontinent Rodinia
600 mya: Lower Mississippi valley (Mississippi Embayment) pushed upward by molten rock. Reelfoot rift (New Madrid Fault) formed.
200 – 145 mya: Jurassic era (dinosaurs) Earth is warm. There is no polar ice
200 mya: Rifting along Atlantic coast as ocean widens: further pulls on Reelfoot rift.
145 – 65 mya – Cretaceous era (dinosaurs). There is no polar ice.
65 mya – mass extinction of many forms of life possibly from meteor striking Mexico
two mya – 10,000 years ago – Glaciers came then melted several times across North America, as far south as Carbondale, Il.
10,000 years ago – man comes here from Siberia. Mississippi and Ohio Rivers rerouted to flow past the future Cairo, Il.
Rain forest
Underground coal mining near Charleston in central Illinois has discovered a 40 square mile, 300-million year old forest with fossilized huge plants, several of which were previously unfamiliar to scientists.
Local dinosaurs
Notice the mention of “Jurassic” era… which may bring images of dinosaurs to mind. Yes, we had dinosaurs in the Midwest, and most likely in Southernmost Illinois. How do we know? One of them became trapped in an earthquake fault south of Marble Hill, Mo., which is a little west of Cape Girardeau. It happened 80 million years ago, when the area was likely a tropical rain forest. The great plains was still a great lake. A hadrosaur was found. A poor farm boy found the bones in the 1930s and his mother sold them to the Smithsonian Institute to get money to buy a cow. You may want to visit the Bollinger County Museum of Natural History in Marble Hill.
Ice Age Glaciers
Glaciers covered Illinois as far south as northern Union and Johnson counties before they stopped and slowly melted. Rock formations, geologic faulting and erosion from a glacier can be found at Giant City State Park south of Carbondale, Fern Clyffe State Park near Goreville, Garden of the Gods near Harrisburg.
The last glacier across Illinois was about 15,000 years ago, perhaps coming no farther south than Central Illinois. Search Illinoian stage glaciation to investigate the glaciers that helped form the Goreville hill on I-57, and the formations in parks listed above.
Over 60 glacial advances and retreats have occurred during the last 2 million years, says the Illinois State Museum. If “ice age” is used to refer to long, generally cool, intervals during which glaciers advance and retreat, the museum researchers say we are still in one today. Our modern climate represents a very short, warm period between glacial advances. (link)
The last ice age.
