Jdailey1991
Sage
I have a picture for this scenario, but I'm not allowed to post attachments, apparently.
Flood basalt catastrophes were something that never happened in human history, but they were common much earlier in Earth's history. The one that comes to the mind of the mainstream were the Siberian Traps, believed to be the culprit for the worst mass extinction in history, killing off 70% of terrestrial species and 95% of marine species, covering a volume of one to four million cubic kilometers and a maximum thickness of 4500 meters.
These eruptions happened 252 million years ago, more than enough time for the forces of erosion and soil accumulation to reduce the Siberian Traps into a pale shadow of their former self.
In this alternate scenario, the Siberian Traps still erupted, but with the following differences:
Date: 60-43 million years ago, so slowly that if it were responsible for a mass extinction, it wouldn't have been dramatic enough for anyone to notice.
Volume: 59-77 million cubic miles
Maximum thickness: 2.5 miles
Marked in red were the cracks in which lava would have oozed out of the mantle and flowed to the surface 60-43 million years ago.
43 million years of erosion and soil accumulation would have given Eurasia a drastically different landscape as opposed to 252 million years of the same thing. Siberia back home is pretty remote and its geographic diversity makes it pretty challenging real estate. Would this Siberia be even more so? Would we still expect to see steppe, desert, forest, wetland and tundra in Russia or would mountains and plateaus be more prevalent?
Flood basalt catastrophes were something that never happened in human history, but they were common much earlier in Earth's history. The one that comes to the mind of the mainstream were the Siberian Traps, believed to be the culprit for the worst mass extinction in history, killing off 70% of terrestrial species and 95% of marine species, covering a volume of one to four million cubic kilometers and a maximum thickness of 4500 meters.
These eruptions happened 252 million years ago, more than enough time for the forces of erosion and soil accumulation to reduce the Siberian Traps into a pale shadow of their former self.
In this alternate scenario, the Siberian Traps still erupted, but with the following differences:
Date: 60-43 million years ago, so slowly that if it were responsible for a mass extinction, it wouldn't have been dramatic enough for anyone to notice.
Volume: 59-77 million cubic miles
Maximum thickness: 2.5 miles
Marked in red were the cracks in which lava would have oozed out of the mantle and flowed to the surface 60-43 million years ago.
43 million years of erosion and soil accumulation would have given Eurasia a drastically different landscape as opposed to 252 million years of the same thing. Siberia back home is pretty remote and its geographic diversity makes it pretty challenging real estate. Would this Siberia be even more so? Would we still expect to see steppe, desert, forest, wetland and tundra in Russia or would mountains and plateaus be more prevalent?
Scribe
Myth Weaver