Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the furthest frontier of Gondwanaland, evolved its own unique collection of
dinosaurs and, probably starting at about the same time, its own unique col-
lection of marsupial mammals.
Australia eventually became home to most of the world's remaining
marsupials, a few of which survived the dinosaur extinction and radi-
ated once more. The resulting adaptive radiation produced marsupials
that ranged from small rodent-like and squirrel-like animals through
the familiar kangaroos, wallaroos, and wallabies to creatures such as the
now-extinct Tasmanian wolf and other large and frighteningly toothy
carnivores. One of these predators, the marsupial lion, was as heavy as
present-day lions. It used its fused bladelike premolar teeth like giant
shears, giving it a more powerful bite than any other animal that we know
of, living or extinct.
The last of the catlike marsupials, the Tasmanian tiger, was driven to
extinction in 1936, the same year in which Tasmania's farsighted government
thoughtfully added the tiger's name to its protected wildlife list.
A change of course
Antarctica, straddling the South Pole, was now left behind as the Austral-
asian plate that carried Australia began to move slowly north and east. As
it moved it acted like a snowplow, pushing up at its northern margin the
great cordillera of mountains that would eventually become the backbone of
New Guinea. The plate's movement also helped to push up a series of island
groups in the central Pacifi c. This chain of islands, which includes New Brit-
ain and the Solomon Islands, arcs out to the east of New Guinea. It marks the
collision between the Australasian and Pacifi c plates.
As the great Australasian tectonic plate crunched further north it also
began to encounter the eastern part of Laurasia, the great northern conti-
nent that had meanwhile broken up into North America and Eurasia. The
Australasian plate began to thrust against the Southeast Asian portion of
the Eurasian plate, also encountering the Philippine plate and other smaller
chunks of crust. These smaller plates were pushed like bumper cars in many
