The scenario presented in this book for the development of
the North American continent claims that a separate Eastern North American
continent moved west and collided with the combination of the tail of the
Siberian continent and the small Pacific plate upland remnant.
The
Standard Theory sees the North American Continent as being mostly as it is
today, but, more recently, the Standard Theory has added a shallow sea
separating the east from the west.
According to my theory, the Eastern
North American continent was never even close to the western section until its
undersea western edge started subducting under the western section about 80
MYA. There was significant undersea edge to subduct, so the above water gap
probably didn't close until after 66 MYA, when the dinosaurs were all dead.
Therefore, it would be impossible for the dinosaurs to mix. My theory would
expect a separate evolution of dinosaurs on the west and on the east.
Now, a paper entitled "A cerotopsian dinosaur from the late Cretaceous
of eastern North America, and the implications for dinosaur biogeography,
Cretaceous Research" by Dr. Nicholas R. Longrich looks at a new fossil from the
eastern section of North America and comments on this separation. A release
from the University of Bath says:
"Dr. Nick Longrich explained: 'Just
as many animals and plants found in Australia today are quite different to
those found in other parts of the world, it seems that animals in the eastern
part of North America in the late Cretaceous period evolved in a completely
different way to those in the western part of what is now North America due to
a long period of isolation.
"This adds to the theory that these two
land masses were separated by a stretch of water, stopping animals from moving
between them, causing the animals in Appalachia to evolve in a completely
different direction, resulting in some pretty weird looking dinosaurs."
So, the Standard Theory has to come up with a long, completely
impassible inland sea in order to explain the above phenomenon, whereas my
theory would be in trouble if this isolation didn't happen
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