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Previous Equatorial Lines

 

If the Earth has gradually grown in size over time, and enormous ocean beds built between some continental land masses - it is quite understandable that the attitude of the planet in relation to the Sun has also changed.

 

At the moment there is much confusion regarding palaeo-climates and hypotheses relating to ‘Snow-ball’ and ‘green-house’ Earth conditions. The geological evidence is perplexing - but all this can be resolved by the following study.

 

From the modelling of the Earth’s size and continental positioning through time, it is possible to assess where the equatorial line, or more precisely speaking, the magnetic equatorial line was situated at a given time. There are three main indicators which betray areas of maximum insolation. These are:-

 

1) Fossil distribution (particularly land animals)

2) Coal seams.

3 The presence of evaporites in areas which were once desert.

 

Also there are signatures from glaciation which can also indicate the boundaries of these equatorial bands.

 

Volcanism can enhance local temperatures and affect micro-climates - and so we have to allow for this too, especially when considering the most primitive forms of life and the earlier geological times.

 

If we consider Pangaean Earth to have had a maximum equatorial temperature of 25 degrees C, (like Mars has now) 328 million years ago, and this has increased to a present maximum equatorial temperature of 50 degrees C; this is equivalent to 0.07 degree C increase every million years. This gives a preliminary setting for the palaeo-climate parameters.

 

We must also understand that this band of insolation widens as the planet gets larger in diameter. Hence, the distribution of animal and plant fossils should widen with the width of this band. It can be understood that the equatorial region is the least seasonally variable part of the planet and the early terrestrial life forms will have required an environment which stays the same throughout the year.

 

But as time passed, certain plants and animals were able to adapt to the seasonal changes experienced in areas further away from the equator. Some insects, for instance, were later able to adjust their life-cycles, so that stages of their metamorphosis were better suited to the seasonal climatic changes. In the plant world, trees like conifers would become adapted to survive colder wintry seasons at the edges of the equatorial belt.

 

With regards to evaporites, only since Jurassic times will these have formed - when the Earth was half the distance between Mars and its present position. This is because a planet in Mars’ position receives only half the amount of sunlight of that of Earth. Consequently hot evaporative conditions would not exist.

 

Concentrations of salts that predate Jurassic times, however, do exist. This may suggest that another process of salt concentration can take place - such as the natural freeze-drying of up-welling saline solutions and the later sublimation of its ice component. This phenomenon is happening today in Antarctica at Lake Fryxell. Lawrence and Hendy (1958) observed brine concentration forming in extreme cold/dry conditions and remarked that evaporites are usually considered to be manifestations of hot, dry climates. This could be the process by which the evaporite domes on Ellef Ringnes Island (Baffin- near Greenland) could have developed in the Devonian Period.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Fossils of the first four-legged land animals  

 

Fossil evidence tells us of the distribution of the earliest land animals and plants. If the dating of these fossils has been correct, their distribution should indicate paleo-climates through the ages and these should conform to the modelling parameters.

 

Tracks of the first tetrapods have been found in Chile, (the Magallanes Basin), Scotland, Poland and Australia which date from Devonian times (417 to 354 mya) and so this preliminarily sets a configuration of the equator which is roughly perpendicular to the present one. Fossils of the first amphibians like Tiktaalik have also been discovered in northern Canada. We know that these first land animals were cold-blooded and therefore could only exist in an equatorial region where temperatures were above 15 degrees C.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE WANDERINGS OF THE EQUATORIAL

LINE