The British Study Edition of the Urantia Papers

Life Carrier

^60:0.1 The era of exclusive marine life has ended. Land elevation, cooling crust and cooling oceans, sea restriction and consequent deepening, together with a great increase of land in northern latitudes, all conspired greatly to change the world’s climate in all regions far removed from the equatorial zone.

^60:0.2 The closing epochs of the preceding era were indeed the age of frogs, but these ancestors of the land vertebrates were no longer dominant, having survived in greatly reduced numbers. Very few types outlived the rigorous trials of the preceding period of biologic tribulation. Even the spore-bearing plants were nearly extinct.

1. THE EARLY REPTILIAN AGE

^60:1.1 The erosion deposits of this period were mostly conglomerates, shale, and sandstone. The gypsum and red layers throughout these sedimentations over both America and Europe indicate that the climate of these continents was arid. These arid districts were subjected to great erosion from the violent and periodic cloudbursts on the surrounding highlands.

^60:1.2 Few fossils are to be found in these layers, but numerous sandstone footprints of the land reptiles may be observed. In many regions the 300 m of red sandstone deposit of this period contains no fossils. The life of land animals was continuous only in certain parts of Africa.

^60:1.3 These deposits vary in thickness from 910 to 3050 m, even being 5,500 on the Pacific coast. Lava was later forced in between many of these layers. The Palisades of the Hudson River were formed by the extrusion of basalt lava between these Triassic strata. Volcanic action was extensive in different parts of the world.

^60:1.4 Over Europe, especially Germany and Russia, may be found deposits of this period. In England the New Red Sandstone belongs to this epoch. Limestone was laid down in the southern Alps as the result of a sea invasion and may now be seen as the peculiar dolomite limestone walls, peaks, and pillars of those regions. This layer is to be found all over Africa and Australia. The Carrara marble comes from such modified limestone. Nothing of this period will be found in the southern regions of South America as that part of the continent remained down and hence presents only a water or marine deposit continuous with the preceding and succeeding epochs.

^60:1.5 ¶ 150,000,000 years ago the early land-life periods of the world’s history began. Life, in general, did not fare well but did better than at the strenuous and hostile close of the marine-life era.

^60:1.6 As this era opens, the eastern and central parts of North America, the northern half of South America, most of Europe, and all of Asia are well above water. North America for the first time is geographically isolated, but not for long as the Bering Strait land bridge soon again emerges, connecting the continent with Asia.

^60:1.7 Great troughs developed in North America, paralleling the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The great eastern-Connecticut fault appeared, one side eventually sinking 3 km. Many of these North American troughs were later filled with erosion deposits, as also were many of the basins of the fresh- and salt-water lakes of the mountain regions. Later on, these filled land depressions were greatly elevated by lava flows which occurred underground. The petrified forests of many regions belong to this epoch.

^60:1.8 The Pacific coast, usually above water during the continental submergences, went down excepting the southern part of California and a large island which then existed in what is now the Pacific Ocean. This ancient California sea was rich in marine life and extended eastward to connect with the old sea basin of the midwestern region.

^60:1.9 ¶ 140,000,000 years ago, suddenly and with only the hint of the two prereptilian ancestors that developed in Africa during the preceding epoch, the reptiles appeared in full-fledged form. They developed rapidly, soon yielding crocodiles, scaled reptiles, and eventually both sea serpents and flying reptiles. Their transition ancestors speedily disappeared.

^60:1.10 These rapidly evolving reptilian dinosaurs soon became the monarchs of this age. They were egg layers and are distinguished from all animals by their small brains, having brains weighing less than 500 g to control bodies later weighing as much as 40 tons. But earlier reptiles were smaller, carnivorous, and walked kangaroolike on their hind legs. They had hollow avian bones and subsequently developed only three toes on their hind feet, and many of their fossil footprints have been mistaken for those of giant birds. Later on, the herbivorous dinosaurs evolved. They walked on all fours, and one branch of this group developed a protective armour.

^60:1.11 Several million years later the first mammals appeared. They were nonplacental and proved a speedy failure; none survived. This was an experimental effort to improve mammalian types, but it did not succeed on Urantia.

^60:1.12 The marine life of this period was meagre but improved rapidly with the new invasion of the sea, which again produced extensive coast lines of shallow waters. Since there was more shallow water around Europe and Asia, the richest fossil beds are to be found about these continents. Today, if you would study the life of this age, examine the Himalayan, Siberian, and Mediterranean regions, as well as India and the islands of the southern Pacific basin. A prominent feature of the marine life was the presence of hosts of the beautiful ammonites, whose fossil remains are found all over the world.

^60:1.13 ¶ 130,000,000 years ago the seas had changed very little. Siberia and North America were connected by the Bering Strait land bridge. A rich and unique marine life appeared on the Californian Pacific coast, where over 1,000 species of ammonites developed from the higher types of cephalopods. The life changes of this period were indeed revolutionary notwithstanding that they were transitional and gradual.

^60:1.14 ¶ This period extended over 25,000,000 years and is known as the Triassic.

2. THE LATER REPTILIAN AGE

^60:2.1 120,000,000 years ago a new phase of the reptilian age began. The great event of this period was the evolution and decline of the dinosaurs. Land-animal life reached its greatest development, in point of size, and had virtually perished from the face of the earth by the end of this age. The dinosaurs evolved in all sizes from a species less than 60 cm long up to the huge noncarnivorous dinosaurs, 23 m long, that have never since been equalled in bulk by any living creature.

^60:2.2 The largest of the dinosaurs originated in western North America. These monstrous reptiles are buried throughout the Rocky Mountain regions, along the whole of the Atlantic coast of North America, over western Europe, South Africa, and India, but not in Australia.

^60:2.3 These massive creatures became less active and strong as they grew larger and larger; but they required such an enormous amount of food and the land was so overrun by them that they literally starved to death and became extinct — they lacked the intelligence to cope with the situation.

^60:2.4 By this time most of the eastern part of North America, which had long been elevated, had been leveled down and washed into the Atlantic Ocean so that the coast extended several hundred kilometres farther out than now. The western part of the continent was still up, but even these regions were later invaded by both the northern sea and the Pacific, which extended eastward to the Dakota Black Hills region.

^60:2.5 This was a fresh-water age characterized by many inland lakes, as is shown by the abundant fresh-water fossils of the so-called Morrison beds of Colourado, Montana, and Wyoming. The thickness of these combined salt- and fresh-water deposits varies from 600 to 1,500 m; but very little limestone is present in