The recent storms that have battered settlements on the east coast of America may have been much more frequent in the region 450 million years ago, according to scientists.
New research pinpointing the positions of the Equator and the landmasses of the USA, Canada and Greenland, during the Ordovician Period 450 million years ago, indicates that the equator ran down the western side of North America with a hurricane belt to the east.
The hurricane belt would have affected an area covering modern day New York State, New Jersey and most of the eastern seaboard of the USA.
An international research team led by Durham University, UK, used the distribution of fossils and sediments to map the line of the Ordovician Equator down to southern California.
The study, published in the journal Geology, is the first to accurately locate and map the ancient Equator and adjacent tropical zones. Previous studies had fuelled controversy about the precise location of the ancient equator. The researchers say the new results show how fossils and sediments can accurately track equatorial change and continental shifts over time.
Co-lead author Professor David Harper, Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University, UK, said: "The equator, equatorial zones and hurricane belts were in quite different places in the Ordovician. It is likely that the weather forecast would have featured frequent hurricane-force storms in New York and other eastern states, and warmer, more tropical weather from Seattle to California."
Since Polar Regions existed 450 million years ago, the scientists believe that there would have been similar climate belts to those of today.
The research team from Durham University, UK, and universities in Canada, Denmark and the USA, discovered a belt of undisturbed fossils and sediments -deposits of shellfish- more than 6000 km long stretching from the south-western United States to North Greenland.
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| Contact: Carl Stiansen c.r.stiansen@durham.ac.uk 44-191-334-6077 Durham University Source:Eurekalert |
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