Levy,
See, the Incas had this giant theme park .... Just kidding, I was making
that up.
Although scientists think that some species of extinct whales had little
legs, they also agree that the legs were too small to support the whales on
land. Kind of a neat image though ... big whale walking around on those
skinny little legs. Anyway, most scientists also think that it was not so
much a matter of the ancient whales climbing up what are now mountains, but
that the mountains grew up under where the ancient whales once lived (and
died). It would work something like this... Some species of ancient whale
type animals lived in areas that were either shallow coastal or inland
seas. In some cases after those whale died and were preserved as fossils,
the land they were on changed shape and elevation as the continents moved
around into their present position. (Most scientists agree that the
continents were in very different positions millions of years ago and are
in slow, but constant motion.) As the continents moved around (sort of
like giant slow bumper cars) in some places where they bumped into each
other the coast was squashed up into mountains. The sea floor (where the
fossil were buried) ended up on what are today mountains.
Regards,
ge
-----Original Message-----
From: Magodblessu@aol.com [SMTP:Magodblessu@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 5:41 PM
To: gearly1@earthlink.net; pita@whale.wheelock.edu
Subject: Ancient Whale fossils
How did ancient whales at altittudes of more than 1524 meters found in the
remote plateau of the Andes Mountains in southern Chile. Did they walk ,
how
did they get there please explain.
levy
<< File: ATT00002.htm >>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Jun 04 2003 - 21:41:38 EDT