Not all change is gradual?sometimes even HUGE earth changes can happen suddenly. For instance, we now know that the island that is now the UK became separated from the mainland suddenly 200,000 years ago after a huge flood. And Greenland, which is now covered by a sheet of ice, once WAS green!
BBC News reports that scientists got this information from a sonar study of the English Channel, which divides England from France. The study shows “deep scars on the Channel bed that must have been cut by a sudden, massive discharge of water.” Researcher Sanjeev Gupta says it would have been one of the largest floods in recent geologic history (it could have been the inspiration for the Legend of Gilgamish which, like the Bible, mentions a huge flood).
In LiveScience.com, Ker Than reports that “the oldest ever recovered DNA samples have been collected from under more than a mile of Greenland ice, and their analysis suggests the island was much warmer during the last Ice Age than previously thought.” Between 450,000 and 800,000 years ago, most of Greenland was covered with lush forests, as well as insects and butterflies. Ker quotes researcher Eske Willerslev as saying, “We have shown for the first time that southern Greenland?was once very different to the Greenland we see today.” The team next plans to use its new techniques to look underneath the ice sheet in Antarctica.
Art credit: gimp-savvy.com
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