Water
256653 BCE to 2547 CE
Water, which covers 71% of the Earth's surface, is vital for all known forms of life.
On Earth, 96.5% of the planet's water is found in seas and oceans, 1.7% in groundwater, 1.7% in glaciers and the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland, a small fraction in other large water bodies, and 0.001% in the air as vapor, clouds (formed of solid and liquid water particles suspended in air), and precipitation.
Only 2.5% of the Earth's water is freshwater, and 98.8% of that water is in ice and groundwater.
Less than 0.3% of all freshwater is in rivers, lakes, and the atmosphere, and an even smaller amount of the Earth's freshwater (0.003%) is contained within biological bodies and manufactured products.
Safe drinking water is essential to humans and other lifeforms even though it provides no calories or organic nutrients.
Approximately 70% of the fresh water used by humans goes to agriculture.
Used in power generation in the form of mills and dams, water plays an important role in the world economy.
It functions as a solvent for a wide variety of chemical substances and facilitates industrial cooling and transportation.
Related Events
Showing 10 events out of 600 total
Eastern West Indies (49,293–28,578 BCE) Upper Pleistocene I — Arc Volcanoes, Reef Slopes, and Windward Shelves (No People)
Geographic and Environmental Context
Eastern West Indies includes eastern Haiti and most of the Dominican Republic (excluding the northern fringe), Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Lesser Antilles (Anguilla → Aruba), and Trinidad & Tobago
Anchors: Vega Real–Santo Domingo valleys; Puerto Rico (Cordillera Central & coastal plains); Virgin Islands passes; Leewards/Windwards (Guadeloupe–Dominica–Martinique–St. Lucia–Barbados–St. Vincent–Grenada–Aruba); Trinidad & Tobago at the Orinoco gate.
Climate & Environmental Shifts
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LGM cooling; lower sea level expanded near-shore benches and cays.
Subsistence, Technology, Corridors, Symbolism — N/A.
Adaptation & Transition -
Pristine; high marine productivity, unpeopled.
Eastern West Indies (28,577–7,822 BCE) Upper Pleistocene II — Deglaciation & Lagoon Growth (Sparse/Episodic Use)
Geographic and Environmental Context
Eastern West Indies includes eastern Haiti and most of the Dominican Republic (excluding the northern fringe), Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Lesser Antilles (Anguilla → Aruba), and Trinidad & Tobago
Anchors: Vega Real–Santo Domingo valleys; Puerto Rico (Cordillera Central & coastal plains); Virgin Islands passes; Leewards/Windwards (Guadeloupe–Dominica–Martinique–St. Lucia–Barbados–St. Vincent–Grenada–Aruba); Trinidad & Tobago at the Orinoco gate.
Climate & Environmental Shifts
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Warming flooded benches into lagoons; mangroves expanded.
Subsistence & Settlement
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Regional Archaic foragers likely reached Windwards/Leewards and Trinidad for seasonal shellfish–fish camps; Puerto Rico/Dominican east saw episodic foraging.
Technology & Corridors
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Preceramic tools; canoe/raft coastal lanes via Orinoco → Trinidad → Lesser Antilles.
Symbolism & Adaptation
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Shell-heap feasting; mobility buffered storms.
Transition
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A stepping-stone archipelago primed for lasting settlement.
Ice sheets cover the whole of Iceland and all but the southern extremity of the British Isles.
This ice extends northward to cover Svalbard and Franz Josef Land and eastward to occupy the northern half of the West Siberian Plain, ending at the Taymyr Peninsula, and damming the Ob and Yenisei rivers forming a West Siberian Glacial Lake.
Northern Europe is largely covered, the southern boundary passing through Germany and Poland, but not quite joined to the British ice sheet.
Permafrost covers Europe south of the ice sheet down to present-day Szeged and Asia down to Beijing.
The ice covers essentially all of Canada and extends roughly to the Missouri and Ohio Rivers, and eastward to New York City.
Alpine glaciers advance in addition to the large Cordilleran Ice Sheet in Canada and Montana, covering much of the Rocky Mountains in the United States.
Latitudinal gradients in North America are so sharp that permafrost does not reach far south of the ice sheets except at high elevations.
Ice sheets also cover Tibet (scientists continue to debate the extent to which the Tibetan Plateau was covered with ice), Baltistan, Ladakh, the Venezuelan Andes, and the Andean altiplano.