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[RC] Environment - Karen Franklin

I’ve enjoyed this thread, especially the discussion today.  A lot of this is right up my alley.  At this moment my computer monitor is displaying a slice of seismic data, allowing me to literally look into the past.  I see constant cycles of change, vast tracts of time passing in the blink of an eye.  What I also see are interdependent systems, the rising and falling of sea levels, evidence of global warming and cooling on a massive scale.  In my backyard here in Texas there is absolute evidence of the life that lived on this same spot 100 million years ago.

 

Those fossils remind me of a small creature that evolved on the North American continent.  Without a warming cycle that favored low growing plants and the development of a new plant, this creature might never have evolved into the one we are enjoying today in the sport of distance riding.  Horses and grasses evolved together.  When environmental pressures became too great on this continent, what was left of the pre-equine species moved to the Eurasian continent and developed further into a beast that was manageable for early humans, first as a source of food, later as a tool for the evolution of civilization.

 

While we do affect the planet to an extent, when we’re gone, life will continue on in whatever manner it may.  I recognize that we are a force of change/evolution and while I very much don’t wish to see species die off due to our influence, in my geological mind I can’t help but wonder – what’s next?

 

Karen E. Franklin

Geologist