Baltica

Despite my confusion over the location of ‘the Baltic States’, they are right where normal people would expect them; along the Baltic Sea. Somehow, over the years, my mind had decided that the otherwise-un-named Baltic states were located immediately north and northwest of Greece. However, I looked them up (for the sake of this blog), and boy, was I wrong. I had put these states in Eastern Europe, but way too far south.

The Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) are in Eastern Europe, snuggled up east of the Baltic Sea and west of the Ural Mountains of Asia. And that places them right on the protocontinent of Baltica!

So, yes, this is kind of related to the Supercontinents blogs, but I’m only going to explore this one little piece of crust. Sometimes it roamed around on its own. At other times, it gathered together with other pieces of crust. Right now, it is smooshed between NorthEastern Europe and NorthWestern Asia. Will it succumb and eventually be pushed under these larger plates, or will it somehow break free again? I don’t know. But let’s see what is known about it.

The thick core of Baltica is also known as the East European Craton and is more than 3 billion years old.

About 2 billion years ago, small pieces of crust started colliding. These included Sarmatia (which was the Ukrainian Shield and Voronezh Massif*) and Volgo-Uralia. That seemed to work pretty well, so about 1.8 billion years ago, they added Fennoscandia, which included the Baltic Shield.

Now, if I’m reading the articles right, about 750 million years ago, Baltica and Laurentia (most of North America) both rotated clockwise, bumped each other lightly and headed for the south pole. At some point (possibly 650 million years ago), it is postulated that Earth became completely covered in snow and ice. (Yes, Snowball Earth.)

It turns out that Siberia was located fairly close to the South Pole, too, and it apparently didn’t take long for Siberia to completely lose its cool. According to one theory, Siberia started having some severe volcanic eruptions, and the build-up of green house gases in the atmosphere from that source resulted in a complete melt-down of all that snow and ice in as little as 2,000 years.

Anyway, Laurentia beat feet and headed north, but Baltica remained in the south at least long enough to hang around Gondwanaland. After that, Baltica drifted north and approached Laurentia again. However, around 425 million years ago, Scotland-Greenland and Norway all collided together, forcing Baltica to look elsewhere for new continental buddies.

Just when you thought you’d found a friend. Poor Baltica.

* Now a piece of Central Russia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltica

https://www.google.com/search?q=baltic+states&oq=Baltic+states&aqs=chrome.0.0l6.4638j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Super Continent 2

As I stated before, Earth has experienced a number of super-continents, which is when all or most of the land masses are in the same place. Pannotia was one of those super-continents. It was fairly short lived, forming about 650 million years ago, and starting to break up 560 million years ago.

In this particular case, most of the land is south of the equator, centered around the south pole. There were a few ‘islands’ stretching towards the equator. Pannotia also included several seas trapped between batches of land, and one long skinny bay that looks like it might actually reach the south pole, according to the drawings.

Only South America and Africa - and possibly Australia - are recognizable land masses in the drawings. All the other continents are apparently unformed, bits and pieces scattered across the drawings. For instance, Siberia and Baltica have not yet joined with a lot more pieces of land to form Eurasia. Laurentia - which apparently will eventually become most of Canada - is a long piece of land located along (the current west coast of) South America. Most of the pieces of land on the drawings have no names attached to them at all.

I know we’re talking millions of years here, but how fast have these land masses been accumulating and then dissolving? And in between coming together, they just seem to zip all over the place, meeting up with other bits of land in new and different patterns.

Kind of makes me think of a kaleidoscope, where all the different pieces of colored crystals form new and intriguing patterns with every slight twist of the barrel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannotia

Fireweed

Somewhere I heard about ‘fireweed’, and my imagination immediately jumped to a vision of a weed with flowers that were bright yellow and red, with long slender petals that stuck up in the air and ‘flickered’ in the breeze.

The real fireweed isn’t like that. The flowers are a solid purple or pink that don’t look a thing like flames. It gets its name because it is probably the first plant to establish itself in an area that has been burnt.

Since then, I have also discovered that the parts of the plant that occur above ground can be used as a natural medicine. Would it surprise you to hear that fireweed has been used to treat fevers, inflammation and infections? It is also used to treat pain and swelling, tumors, wounds and an enlarged prostate. Certain forms of it have been used as an astringent and as a tonic.

And it’s edible! New shoots can be cooked like asparagus, while young flowers and leaves can be eaten raw. (They are slightly sweet and mildly astringent.) Older stems can be peeled and enjoyed as a snack. Older leaves and the flowers can be cooked as a vegetable, and will both flavor and thicken soups, stews, and the like.

If that’s not enough, you can stuff a doll or start a fire with the stuff contained within the seed pods. The seed pods are about 3 inches long, and when they pop open (with or without any help from you), the minuscule seeds are released, each with its own feathery tuft that allows it to ride the breeze to a new home. I’ve also read the adjective ‘cotton-like’ in reference to the seeds and tufts, which made me think it could be used to stuff a child’s doll. Or, use the stuff inside the seed pods as kindling to make a fire.

I like the concept of a fireweed. I think I might use the term for a plant on some other planet in one of my stories. Only I think my version of fireweed will have those red and yellow flickering flowers. And maybe those flowers are ghost-pepper hot!

Now, that strikes me as a real fireweed, in all ways.

http://wildfoodsandmedicines.com/fireweed/

https://medium.com/invironment/wild-edibles-fireweed-is-everywhere-8ea22e6d0a0e

https://www.rxlist.com/fireweed/supplements.htm

Super Continents 1

In geology, a supercontinent is when all or most of the Earth’s continental blocks form a single landmass. But earth scientists may use a different definition; ‘a clustering of nearly all continents’, which leaves room for interpretation.

The land masses have conjoined and separated several times. The most recent mass that joined them all is called Pangaea. This conjoining began about 335 million years ago, and began to break up about 175 million years ago.

Pangaea looked more or less like a crescent or the letter ‘c’. The Eurasian continent sat at the top, with the area now forming southeast asia stretching south and east. To the southwest lay North America, and along the NA ‘east coast’ lay the west coast of the big hump of Africa, which was pushed clockwise a bit off its southern tip. The bump of Brazil of South America lay snuggled against North America and Africa. India and Antarctica rested along the southeast of Africa, from the ‘Red Sea’ area south. Australia nestled against India and Antarctica.

I used the words ‘lay’, ‘snuggled’ and ‘nestled’, but the drawing I looked at indicated all sorts of irregular-shaped bits and pieces scattered between all these known continents. I didn’t see anything that resembled the Arabian Peninsula, so I can’t say where that particular piece was hiding at the time of Pangaea.

Pangaea stretched from the south pole to within spitting distance of the north pole. It was a solid body of land that would not have allowed any ocean currents to go around the globe horizontally.

Pangaea began to break up about 175 million years ago. Once India broke away from its neighbors, it raced toward Eurasia at 6 inches a year. Is it any surprise that when they slammed together, they formed mountains like the Himalayas? India (as well as Australia) is still moving northeast at 2-3 inches per year. In a few million years, Australia could scoop up bits and pieces of Indonesia and then head for the northern Pacific. Will it?

I don’t know. Isn’t there a trench somewhere along Indonesia? Seems like a deep ditch would slow Australia down or something. Something else for me to look up and think about.

By the way, this is the first of probably several blogs on super-continents. How long they take me and how often other subjects insinuate themselves into the lineup of blogs remains to be seen. Thems the chances you take when you decide to read my blog.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercontinent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea