Saturday, March 09, 2013

My Favourite Subject In University...

...was paleoanthropology, so this naturally piqued my curiosity:

China human fossil discovery gets name

More about Homo erectus.

I know some people who look like and perhaps act like Homo erectus (ie. becoming extinct), but we won't go into that now.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Dave in Pa. said...

Following a further link from the Homo erectus Wiki link, I found this incredible (at least to me) statement:

"Regardless of the aridity of the greater Sahara, migration along the river corridor was halted when, during a desert phase 1.8–0.8 million years ago (mya), the Nile ceased to flow completely[2] and possibly flowed only temporarily in other periods[3] due to the geologic uplift (Nubian Swell) of the Nile River region."

I've never actually seen the great Nile, only photos and in movies, so I can only compare it to another of the world's greatest rivers, the Mississippi, which I have seen. To imagine such a great river not flowing, dry as a bone, is amazing. Massive geological changes, i.e. a bone-dry Nile; a lush, life-rich Sahara with rivers and great lakes...hard to wrap one's mind around!

March 10, 2013 10:08 am  
Blogger Louise said...

Hey, I've seen both rivers. What struck me about the Nile was how narrow it was and the green fertile belt on either side is also very narrow. One could easily walk from the river to the desert in less than a minute.

The Mississippi, on the other hand, at least where I saw it, was very wide. That was somewhere up near the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi. I have no idea if it's that wide from the North end all the way down to it's mouth, but it sure was impressive.

I seem to have a thing for rivers. Probably because I grew up beside one, in a valley that was apparently carved out by the receding glaciers during the end of the last ice age.

I remember my sister found an old fossil once on the valley bank. We took it to the Geology Dept. at the U of S in Saskatoon, and the prof told us how old it was. I forget now what he said, but the fossil contained a long-ago extinct creature that lived in water.

And yeah, the earth has a habit of constantly changing, doesn't it. Don't tell global warming greenies, though. They'll have bouts of hysteria, worse than that from which they already suffer.

Another amazing river, is the Red River. It's also a very narrow channel with absolutely flat prairie for miles and miles on either side, so when it floods, the flood waters reach a long, long way. There really is no Red River Valley, despite what that old song claims, at least not on the Canadian side of the border.

I was living in Manitoba during one of the recent floods. Driving from Brandon into Winnipeg the fields on either side of the highway were covered with water for miles and miles and miles, but it was only about hip-wader deep. There was no place along the highway were the water had inundated the road.

March 10, 2013 12:23 pm  

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