If you’ve ever wondered which dinosaurs lived in your hometown, you need to check out this interactive map. It was created by California paleontologist Ian Webster, and you’re able to search any city.
“It shows that our environment is dynamic and can change,” Webster told CNN. “The history of Earth is longer than we can conceive, and the current arrangement of plate tectonics and continents is an accident of time. It will be very different in the future, and Earth may outlast us all.”
The Dinosaur Pictures map is a great resource for parents and teachers who want to learn and teach about the different phases that Earth has gone through. While you can search for dinosaurs, it also tells you things including the current condition of the Earth at any chosen time. Like telling about how the polar ice caps didn’t exist yet and telling us that the world was warm.
You can jump around with the search options and choose to see first insects, first vertebrates, or first dinosaurs. Selecting one of those will set the year to the correct one so that you can search the areas by using the left box.
Each date will show you a different picture of earth. It tracks what scientists think the world looked like going all the way back to Pangea, when everything was still connected. Webster’s site utilizes GPlates, and it designed on top of another map which visualizes models created by geologist and paleogeographer Christopher Scotese.
