175 million years ago

NZgunner

I'm happy with the geography, humanity (and others) next ...

JimP

Pangea ?

Wyvern

Should be roughly mid-Jurassic Pangaea break-up period around 175 million years ago, Jim.

Not so sure about the climatic zones, assuming that is meant to be high-latitude ice and narrow desert belts in the lower mid-latitudes. Evidence suggests little ice and a warmer planet overall around this time, with a much smaller temperature gradient between the equator and the poles than we currently find. Arid areas may not have been quite so belt-like as this drawing suggests, though possibly more extensive in some places than others.

Be interesting to know what the sources for this map were, certainly, as new ideas about paleoclimates are always surfacing, so my knowledge may be out of date already!

JimP

I remember one documentary I saw, but I don't remember if it was Panga or not, the continent interior was all desert. The only tree structures were near the coasts.

NZgunner

Thanks for the comments 😀

The landmass is almost direct from the paleo DEMs referenced in here https://forum.profantasy.com/discussion/comment/110901#Comment_110901. I refactored the height and sculpted the bathymetric terrain partly based on this map https://answers.syr.edu/download/attachments/73387141/170%20Ma%20Moll%20_Jur-GPT-LL.jpg?api=v2

I have to confess I've been incredibly simplistic with climate, just lowering rainfall across current latitudes that have modern day deserts - but I wasn't intending for this to be a representation of the actual climate/flora 175 mya in the mid-Jurassic - there wouldn't be grasslands for a start - rather an interesting looking world to build on.

Still, the "banded" deserts do look stupid, I'll have another go at them.

[Deleted User]

And I think the inner areas where there is a lot of land mass, and perhaps rain shadows, could have more desert. I general, the more massive the continent, the more inland areas are arid.

Wyvern

Thanks for the additional information on your map @NZgunner - much appreciated!

It's so difficult to be sure what the palaeoclimates were for specific periods in the past, as the evidence is commonly very incomplete, and needs a lot of extrapolation. There are suggestions for what may have been happening in certain areas at more specific times though, so if you wanted to tie down to a specific 175 Mya date, it might be worth checking through the available literature.

It's not certain that modern climatic zones and effects are necessarily a suitable model to copy for the geologic past, unfortunately. There's evidence for a lot more free carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere than modernly at times in the Jurassic, for instance, partly hence the somewhat warmer temperatures than today too, in all probability, and the apparent lack of major glaciated regions.

mike robel

Nice work!