Moon nearer the earth during the mesozoic

Hi all,
This topic has been bugging me for a while,and I would like it if some kind person could answer my question?
During the mesozoic was the moon in a nearer
orbit to the earth than what it is in modern times.
If so the tides must have been more extreme during the mesozoic,is there evidence to proove this?
Could this also have effected the evolution of certain species during this time,maybe this could have been one of the factors that caused certain species to go extinct at the end of the Jurassic?

Good thought. However, remember that extinction is actually a lot more complicated than you'd think. When thinking about extinctions, you must think about more than one factor. Just about ANYTHING could alter the evolution of organisms, but there's also no way of knowing what kind of effect it would have had because we don't know how their evolution would've turned out. We also can't tell if it was the orbit of the moon or if that's where it was heading anyway.


I think asking an Astronomer would be a wise idea, Kenobi. However, based on my knowledge that's certainly plausible.

Hi Raptor Lewis ,
Yes I know its an odd question I ask,but like you say anything is plausable with nature and evolution.
Maybe in the not to distant future this topic may be asked and I may be right.
I suppose the only way we will ever be able to answer this question with good evidence would be to be able to travel back to the mesozoic and see first hand.
Thanks anyway Raptor Lewis

Hi Kenobi
there's a web sight I visited that hits on this subject...THE SOLUTION IS SCIENCE BY: DAVID ESKER. The solution to the big dinosaur parodox. chapter 4 [dinosaurtheory.com]

Thanx Walesend ,
I`ll look into it
Thanx again

I heard from a good source that when the Apollo missions went to the moon they left an instrument on the moon so they could aim a laser at the moon to measure the distance of the moon from the earth.
Since they have been doing this from the 1970`s
it has been found that the moon is moving away from the Earth.
Imagine what may happen to the tides 200 million years fom now,may be there wont be any tides or hardly any tide at all???
What might that do to life on Earth if it still exists on the planet by then

I'm sure something really 'big' will happen to Planet Earth with or without the moon moving further away... Through history this has happened so I have no reason to believe it won't go on that way.

From what I've read the moon plays a vital roll in our survival. It acts like a pressure valve releasing magma from the center of our core onto the ocean floor, without the gravitational pull from the moon we would have more volcano activity above ground like there was billions of years ago and the oceans would become stagnant. But then I was watching the National Geographic television station and they were taking about Reverse Polarity in the earths magnetic field which would leave us exposed to the rays of the sun and celestial body's and if that's not bad enough they mentioned the Mayan doomsday calendar which will wipe us all out on December 21 2012 but on the up swing NASA'S planning a trip to the moon to study earths prehistoric past, around 2015 which thank goodness is after 2012.

the moon controls the breeding of fish and has an influence on women's periods, i also have heard that every year the moon travels like a centimeter or so further away, not good for life on earth, but with global warming being traced back to the beginning of the industrial revolution i believe we will have everything well and truly stuffed up by the time the moon becomes a problem. No one to find fossils then, not even ours, unless their aliens like E.T.