TIMELINE OF THE YUCATAN PENINSULA
During the late Cretaceous, continents were drifting towards their actual position. Central America and the Yucatan peninsula were still submerged.
65 million years ago
- The Chicxulub asteroid impacted in the Gulf of Mexico, at a depth of 1000 meters.
- The Impact might have caused a gravitational abnormality that deformed the sea bed, preparing the ground for future collapses on the Yucatan peninsula, when it was still underwater.
- Dinosaurs went gradually extinct.
35-18 million years ago
- Between the Oligocene and the Miocene, Earth cooled down and warmed up a couple of times, causing two mass extinctions.
- Yucatan shallow reefs emerged and got submerged again, according to sea level changes during these glacial periods.
- Approximately 18 million years ago, the Yucatan platform gradually emerged one last time.
2.5 million years ago
- The Quaternary Ice Age began, Earth’s northern hemisphere was ice-covered during the glacial periods.
- The Panama isthmus recently emerged, allowing species to spread into the two Americas, escaping from the cold.
- The most recent prehistoric megafauna appeared at the beginning of the last glaciation in Yucatan.
- 1,000,000 years ago in Africa, Australopithecus appeared. Man started to evolve and spread around the globe.
700,000-12,000 years ago
- Earth continued to cool down and warm up during the glacial and interglacial periods of the ice age.
- Sea level in the Yucatan peninsula rose and dropped according to global temperature changes.
- Solution caves started to take shape, being flooded and dry several times, according to the sea level changes.
- 500,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens appeared on Earth.
- Man crossed the Bering Strait during a glacial period, colonizing North America, and moving south.
- Between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago, towards the end of the ice age, the sea level rose from -120m to -30m compared to today’s surface level, flooding the caves one last time.
12,000-10,000 years ago
- Earth kept warming up and the ice was melting almost everywhere, except at the poles and on the mountains.
- Man arrived from North America to Mexico, Central, and South America.
- The prehistoric megafauna went extinct because of climate changes and human hunting.
- During the last 10,000 years, the sea level continued to rise from -30m to the actual level.
2,000 years ago until today
- 2,000 years ago, the Mayan civilization was born.
- 700 years ago, the Spanish colonization began.
- 50 years ago, we started to explore the caves underwater!
