Do you ever wonder who lived in your home millions of years ago? The kids returning from Jurassic Park screening must have wondered who their dino neighbours could be. Now, it’s possible to know.
The Dinosaur Database has created 'Ancient Earth globe' which is an interactive map. This map can teach about the dinosaurs that lived in a particular location in two ways. The first option is to search for available fossil records in a user’s hometown or they can search the map globally if they are looking for any specific dino-species. The map features a 3-D Earth with countless stars in the background; mimicking the earth as seen in space.
The interaction is very user-friendly. You can simply type in the name of your city in the search field situated at the top left of the screen. Just like Google, a list of nearby fossils will appear on the screen, just below the search bar. However, if no fossils have been discovered so far, the result will simply showcase what the environment would have been, for example, 20 million years ago.
In case prominent fossils have been uncovered, for example, near New York City, you’ll get Grallator, Pteranodon, and Dryptosaurus in the results.
These are all prominent fossils discovered by palaeontologists over the years. Each dino-species name is a hyperlink which will then take you to the Dinosaur Database website. The page dedicated to each species will describe interesting facts and images to explore, as well as a direct link to view where the dinosaur lived on the Ancient Earth globe.
The software was created by Ian Webster, who is a palaeontologist as well as a computer scientist.
But discovering dino-details isn’t the only use for this cool application. You can also use it to trace the tectonic shifts of the land under your feet over a course of millennia.
While the left-side search bar can be used input location, there is a drop-down menu on the top-right side to filter the results. It ranges from “first green algae” to “dinosaur extinction.” You can see the same location in various time-periods to see how the Earth, and your home, has evolved and changed since life began.