4 ms·
Last week I was in the field digging dinosaurs in Montana, when one of the dig leaders mentioned there was no grass back then, just lots of ferns, because grass
by dluan 8y ago
Last week I was in the field digging dinosaurs in Montana, when one of the dig leaders mentioned there was no grass back then, just lots of ferns, because grass hadn't evolved yet.
It kind of blew my mind that for most of dinosaurs, there was just a lot of leafs and ferns.
Here's some pictures for context (https://imgur.com/a/rE5wwc4 https://imgur.com/a/rE5wwc4), when you're out where most dino bones are found, you forget that it may have been a lush landscape of riverbeds approaching the ocean coastline, or that it may have been a dry arid desert landscape like in the land before time movies. Regardless, it's odd to imagine all of it, with no grass.
- ende 8y agoLots of mosses though? I imagine more primitive vegetation filled that role.
- yeukhon 8y agoCan anyone just dig? I’d love to join the journey for a week or two.
- cup-of-tea 8y agoThere wasn't even grass in South Africa until humans brought it there. Surprised me too.
- mkl 8y agoReally? It doesn't seem to be true: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1696/20150170 http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1696/2015... talks about grasslands in South Africa 1-2 million years ago, well before humans existed.
- cup-of-tea 8y agoOK, it seems I misunderstood because I don't know much about grass. It seems there was some grass there a long time ago, but there is also a lot of "alien grass" that was introduced to the Cape region by humans. The alien grass is considered invasive and outcompetes the natural vegetation there which is called fynbos.
- salty_biscuits 8y ago400 million years ago, there were no trees. But there were giant mushroom forests https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/long-before-trees-overtook-the-land-earth-was-covered-by-giant-mushrooms-13709647/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/long-before-trees-...
- gus_massa 8y agoDo you have a blog post with more photos/context? It can be an interesting submission, specially if you can answer the comments.
- peter303 8y agoNot only that, but grass has a special kind of photosynthesis that can survive in a lower CO2 atmosphere than other kinds of plants. Believe it or not, one of the long term hazards for life is too little CO2 for photosynthesis, below 100 ppm. The long term driver of CO2 is geology: weathering of rocks and formation of limestone in the deep ocean remove CO2; subduction zone volcanos return it to the atmosphere. Biosphere carbon is less than one percent of geologic carbon. When the Earth cools down too much to continue plate tectonics in a billion years or so, there will be too little volcanic carbon returned to the atmosphere. Plants and algae will die and so will all animals that eat them. Only chemeotrophic microbes will remain. Sentient life could halt this process by burning limestone to release carbon. This is how cement is made.