Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The Arctic was once home to a landmass three times the size of Antarctica. About 200 million years ago, it helped cause a cold spell that lasted for millennia and gave dinosaurs their chance to conquer the planet.
According to palaeontologist Paul Olsen at Columbia University in New York, this “giant Arctic continent” consisted of what is now Siberia and China.
For most of the Mesozoic Era – between 252 and 66 million years ago – all of Earth’s land was gathered into one supercontinent, Pangaea, except, it was thought, for what is now China. This slab of continental material was divided into two chunks that both drifted at a temperate latitude in what was the world’s only ocean at the time, named Panthalassa.
Read more: newscientist.com/article/2524366-giant-arctic-continent-launched-dinosaurs-to-world-domination
The Arctic was once home to a landmass three times the size of Antarctica. About 200 million years ago, it helped cause a cold spell that lasted for millennia and gave dinosaurs their chance to conquer the planet.
According to palaeontologist Paul Olsen at Columbia University in New York, this “giant Arctic continent” consisted of what is now Siberia and China.
For most of the Mesozoic Era – between 252 and 66 million years ago – all of Earth’s land was gathered into one supercontinent, Pangaea, except, it was thought, for what is now China. This slab of continental material was divided into two chunks that both drifted at a temperate latitude in what was the world’s only ocean at the time, named Panthalassa.
Read more: newscientist.com/article/2524366-giant-arctic-continent-launched-dinosaurs-to-world-domination
