IF I remember correctly, Hawaii was one of the last Islands to be found.
as a side note, we had a simular thread in ASB:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=124571
The Eigth Continent "Hawaii"
- Thread starter Tom Kalbfus
- Start date
IF I remember correctly, Hawaii was one of the last Islands to be found.
as a side note, we had a simular thread in ASB:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=124571
according to the ever-so-useful 'Guns, Germs, and Steel', Hawaii was colonized around 500 AD, New Zealand about 1000, the Chathams about 1300, and (strangely enough), Easter Island was about the same time as Hawaii at 500. Something to do with ocean currents, apparently. One has to wonder if the Polynesians had a whole tropical continent to fill, if New Zealand would have had to wait a while longer to be discovered and settled. But maybe not, since NZ was apparently settled from the Cook Islands, while Hawaiians came from the Marquesas...
there's an area on Kaho'olawe that translates to something like 'The path to Tahiti', something about Currents.
although a larger Hawaii continent may mean Groups from tahiti, Cook, etc, etc, all make it about the same time.
Probably means the groups either carve out their own spheres of influences to start with and remain a seperate thing untill either Europeans, Probably Spanish, Make it there.
One thing with Hawaii the continent, expect a seriously impoverished flora and fauna. Without a historical connection to any continent or land bridge, the only plants and animals will be immigrants that make it across the sea. So basically windblown seeds, drift seeds and seeds that make it in the guts of birds. Limited species, and limited root genetic diversity of the species that do make it. You'll get some natural speciation and diversification over millions of years. But its going to be a narrow and vulnerable range.
As for animals.... flying birds, migratory birds, bats, maybe a few flightless bird species, otters (possibly), and assuming otters, perhaps mustelids adapted from otters, and that's about it. We'll have a plant population unused to herbivores.
So, basically, as in our world, the Polynesians who settle Hawaii will have little more than what they bring with them.
As for animals.... flying birds, migratory birds, bats, maybe a few flightless bird species, otters (possibly), and assuming otters, perhaps mustelids adapted from otters, and that's about it. We'll have a plant population unused to herbivores.
So, basically, as in our world, the Polynesians who settle Hawaii will have little more than what they bring with them.
Not necessarily. Evolution and mutation will surely produce a rich fauna and flora. No region with a decent climate on earth lacks these.
But that presumes the continent is around long enough for the stranded floura and fauna to evolve into new niches, which may not happen depending upon when the continent arises.
David S Poepoe
Banned
Polynesia was settled in different 'migratory' waves spread out from different points at different times tho from a central 'trunk'. Hawaii itself was settled in at least two to three waves, the last coming up from Tahiti. Also its apparent that there was some communication between the island groups. I don't see why the settlement of New Zealand would be any different than OTL.
No matter the time of formation, evolution would take effect on all of the species that make it to the continent. (In reality an 8th continent would alter all history, and life, into unrecognizable forms).
The first life forms to colonize virgin ground are always plants and insects/spiders. The birds would be next, along with some sea life adapting to the fresh water rivers. Frogs would probably come at this time after a cyclone picks them up in Asia and rains their eggs down on the continent.
Seals would be next. some of the birds will become flightless and some of the seals may move up the rivers or beachs and eventually become terrestrial again.
Tom Kalbfus
Banned
The asteroid impact wipes out major forms of life, leaving the birds, small mammals, reptiles, insects and other creatures. Lets say this continent was isolated even then, then it undergoes a further 65 million years of seperate evolution until the present. Bird land there, lacking mammilian predators, they become flightless, and they grow larger and larger, in some cases the birds evolve into creatures resembling what they were before they became bird. Some of the wings evolve into arms, the arms evolve into legs, so you have four-legged and two legged varieties of "birds", some of these could be quite monsterous in size of about dinosaurian proportions, if they are not actually dinosaurs, lets say even the quadropeds retain their feathers, although they are the short and downy variety, they stay warm blooded and they continue to lay eggs, and lets say these are the creatures the Polynesians encounter when they first settle on the continent. I don't think they will bring much livestock on their outrigger canoes, so they don't disrupt the environment too much, but when the Europeans arrive in their wooden ships, that will be a different story.
So what do you think, will they encounter something like a "feathered Dinotopia"?
Well, yes and no, but in this case, most no.
A lot depends on the history of the continent. In this case, the Hawaii that we know is pretty recent, roughly a million years old or less. That doesn't give evolution very much time to work with. Most of the places that we know of with impressive biodiversity - Australia, South America, Madagascar, New Zealand, archaic isolated North America, were isolated for periods of forty or fifty million years or more. Sometimes much more.
The larger an animal species is, the more time it needs to diverge and evolve. That's just simple mechanics. Big animals mean smaller populations. Smaller populations have fewer mutations. Big animals take more time to grow and reproduce and tend to reproduce more slowly.
So a Hawaii continent only a million years old or so might have a very interesting assortment of unique beetles and butterflies, but not necessarily much of a remarkable complement of reptiles, birds or mammals.
For real significant Hawaiian biodiversity, you'd need perhaps to advance the age of the continent to at least 10 million years, and more generously 40 to 50 million or better.
The other problem that we wrestle with is isolation.
Madgascar, New Zealand, Australia and ancient 'Island' North and South America respectively had some amazing flowerings. But they didn't start from scratch. Rather, even places like Madagascar and New Zealand started off witht he basics of a supercontinent, Gondwana. Their starting deck of cards was immense, and isolation allowed that to evolve into a complex and distinctive biological array.
Hawaii's not part of any supercontinent, it doesn't get a rich biological heritage. What it gets are statistically a very narrow set of cards. Stuff that gets washed up or deposited for one reason or another. Hawaii is as isolated as you can get. The odds of transfer of life forms from either Asia or North America is incredibly remote. Odds of transfer from nearer Islands are better, but then that means that there's a narrower range of source life.
All of which suggests that Hawaii's evolution will be very different from and unimpressive compared to Australia, New Zealand, Madagascar, etc.
Also, Island ecologies, even continental Island ecologies, tend to be remarkably less robust than the supercontinent ecologies. Basically, smaller populations, lower rates of reproduction, less diversity of niches. The records for such meetings have been disastrous for Island ecologies, with minimal contribution.
Yep. But there's a very limited assortment of starting plants and insects which makes a real difference.
Also correct. We will probably get something like the Dodo or the Flightless Ducks that occurred in our timeline. On the other hand, we probably don't get Moa or Elephant Birds, because those are Rattites, who originated in the Supercontinents before the Dinosaurs bought it.
Check it out on a map. Somewhat dubious. Even so, I'll grant some possibility.
Seals show up, I believe, ten or fifteen million years ago in the fossil record. They're relative johny come latelies.
I agree with some birds becoming flightless, but suggest that's not going to amount to all that much. As for terrestrial seals, I think its a stretch.
Tom Kalbfus
Banned
Here's a coastal outline for the eighth continent to further clarify the discussion.
The main thing I was wondering about was how fast the place would fill up... there are only so many Polynesians around, so either Hawaii or New Zealand seems like it would be settled more slowly...
Hmmm. Interesting.
And never part of any supercontinent?
Okay, here are some off the top notes. First, it's really going to mess up ocean current. It sits right astride the north Equatorial Current, Equatorial Countercurrent, and the south Equatorial current.
The Equatorial currents move from East to West. In our timeline, the North Equatorial current moves across to the Phillipines and eventually turns upwards, becoming the Japan Current. In this timeline, the North Equatorial current is probably going to be kicked upwards by the Hawaiin continent, so we'll have a flow of tropical water directly towards Kamchatka, Siberia and Alaska. Those areas will be wetter, and likely much warmer (particularly along the coasts). Arctic water coming in through the Bering staight will form a countercurrent. Overall, terrible weather up there.
One variable is that with the Hawaiian continent literally punching tropical water north, much less chance of convenient land bridges across the bering into north America. So look for a later migration into North America, and possibly a mostly empty North America.
The South equatorial current is also pushed downwards, but its dislocation isn't as extreme. Still, Australia is likely to be drier than in our timeline. Of course, the Equatorial countercurrent doesn't have any chance of moving in the direction of the Americas. Instead, it'll probably head south, and form a circular local current. So Australia may be wetter than it would otherwise be.
In terms of wind patterns, in our timeline, there's a big perpetual high pressure region between North America and Hawaii, with winds blowing towards Hawaii. Likely to remain in this timeline, with the result that Hawain winds blow east to west, making the east coast the wettest and warmest area.
Geographically, I'm not getting much of a sense of the place. If the Hawaiin continent has any resemblance to current topography, then we'd assume that the highest areas are along the Eastern shores - where Hawaii and Midway are in our timeline.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pacific_elevation.jpg
If that's the case, not good. The winds are also flowing east to west. If the highlands and mountains are in the east, they'll form a cloud barrier. The result is that the Eastern coastal strip and some of the inland gets all the rainwater. The Hawaiin interior may well be an arid desert, much like Australia. Indeed, what we may get here is little more than another version of Australia.
Of course, its possible that the Eastern mountains and highlands get so much water that they become the river sources for the interior. The result would be that the Interior country doesn't get all that much rain, comparatively, but it is fed and watered by rivers originating from the coastal mountains. Still, we can expect a relatively dry arid interior. The Southern and Western shorelines will also be dry. A northern low pressure system and countervailing winds will produce seasonal rainfalls along the northern shores.
Okay, so what does this bring us for life? Well, I'm going to hedge a couple of bets here. First assumption is that this place was never part of Larasia, Gondwana or Pangea, but represents a brand new structure. Second, although Hawaii in our timeline is a million years old, a million years isn't nearly enough time for something this size, so I'm going to arbitrarily estimate a time period of 10 to 25 million years for formation.
What gets there? Man, it's going to be tough. The prevailing currents and winds are going to be coming from the empty ocean between Hawaii and North America. So under normal circumstances, we'd assume that the big biological influence would be drift from America. But there's a huge gulf of distance, so that makes it very difficult. Plants and insects are going to have to survive an ocean passage of more than 2500 miles.
What this means is minimal colonization events. Very few species make it, and they make it very infrequently. The Hawaii Continent East Coast botany and insect catalogue is going to resemble American coastal somewhat, but with fewer families and more species within the families.
The best prospects for plant and insect travel will be from the South Pacific, islands like Samoa, Tuvalu, Fiji, Tonga the Solomons, etc. But the problem is that the prevailing winds and currents will be going the wrong way. This makes colonization events difficult to say the least. Thus, more infrequent, fewer species. To make matters worse, the South and West coast shorelines will be the dryest and most inhospitable shores, and the furthest away from any river systems that are fed by east coast mountains. Which means that South Pacific plants and insects, which will derive either from Australia or Asia, will have a lot of difficulty making it.
We'll likely see very limited imports of a few families, and speciation from there as they move up to increasingly wet and fertile niches inland or along the coasts.
As for animals - for mammals, nothing but bats, seals and maybe pacific otters. Lots of Birds and bird diversification, likely lots of flightless bird species, including creatures the size of sheep or calves. But no Rattite giants like the Moa.
Alternately, if we assume that it's a breakaway plate from a supercontinent, then we can make different assumptions about the biology. If its from a supercontinent, then it'll have a much greater starting sample of insects, plants and animals.
But then, where is it from, and when did it break away? Given its position in the central Pacific, there are two possibilities. First, it may have broken from North America and is moving west. Or it may have broken from Asia and is moving east. If all the Mountains and highlands are in the East, then likely, its broken from Asia. However, to get that far into the Pacific, it would have to have broken away a long time ago. Perhaps as early as 150 million to 200 million years ago.
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/150moll.jpghttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pacific_elevation.jpg
On the other hand, we know that the Indian Plate moved incredibly fast over 30 or 40 million years, across what might be a similar distance. So let's assume our timetable to get the Hawaiin continent into the middle of the Pacific is anywhere from 175 to 35 million years.
That makes for a lot of variables. Mammals didn't show up until 135 million years ago or so. So if Hawaii broke away before that, there may be no indigenous mammals, and the continent might be populated by birds, reptiles and resurgent dinosaurs. On the other hand, if the breakaway was between 130 and 65 million years ago, we can assume a mammal dominated ecology, perhaps loosely parallel to Australia, but quite unique. Or, if the breakaway was between 60 and 35 million years ago, then we can assume some relationship and common ancestors with Asian fauna, particularly the Asian fauna that flourished at the time of breakaway.
As to who gets there? Easy. The Polynesians. Probably somewhere around 500 BCE to 500 CE, likely multiple waves of colonisation as they explore coasts and interiors. The most accessible coasts for the Polynesians will not support polynesian tropical agriculture, so likely a profusion of hunter gatherer societies moving inland, competing with coastal explorers.
And never part of any supercontinent?
Okay, here are some off the top notes. First, it's really going to mess up ocean current. It sits right astride the north Equatorial Current, Equatorial Countercurrent, and the south Equatorial current.
The Equatorial currents move from East to West. In our timeline, the North Equatorial current moves across to the Phillipines and eventually turns upwards, becoming the Japan Current. In this timeline, the North Equatorial current is probably going to be kicked upwards by the Hawaiin continent, so we'll have a flow of tropical water directly towards Kamchatka, Siberia and Alaska. Those areas will be wetter, and likely much warmer (particularly along the coasts). Arctic water coming in through the Bering staight will form a countercurrent. Overall, terrible weather up there.
One variable is that with the Hawaiian continent literally punching tropical water north, much less chance of convenient land bridges across the bering into north America. So look for a later migration into North America, and possibly a mostly empty North America.
The South equatorial current is also pushed downwards, but its dislocation isn't as extreme. Still, Australia is likely to be drier than in our timeline. Of course, the Equatorial countercurrent doesn't have any chance of moving in the direction of the Americas. Instead, it'll probably head south, and form a circular local current. So Australia may be wetter than it would otherwise be.
In terms of wind patterns, in our timeline, there's a big perpetual high pressure region between North America and Hawaii, with winds blowing towards Hawaii. Likely to remain in this timeline, with the result that Hawain winds blow east to west, making the east coast the wettest and warmest area.
Geographically, I'm not getting much of a sense of the place. If the Hawaiin continent has any resemblance to current topography, then we'd assume that the highest areas are along the Eastern shores - where Hawaii and Midway are in our timeline.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pacific_elevation.jpg
If that's the case, not good. The winds are also flowing east to west. If the highlands and mountains are in the east, they'll form a cloud barrier. The result is that the Eastern coastal strip and some of the inland gets all the rainwater. The Hawaiin interior may well be an arid desert, much like Australia. Indeed, what we may get here is little more than another version of Australia.
Of course, its possible that the Eastern mountains and highlands get so much water that they become the river sources for the interior. The result would be that the Interior country doesn't get all that much rain, comparatively, but it is fed and watered by rivers originating from the coastal mountains. Still, we can expect a relatively dry arid interior. The Southern and Western shorelines will also be dry. A northern low pressure system and countervailing winds will produce seasonal rainfalls along the northern shores.
Okay, so what does this bring us for life? Well, I'm going to hedge a couple of bets here. First assumption is that this place was never part of Larasia, Gondwana or Pangea, but represents a brand new structure. Second, although Hawaii in our timeline is a million years old, a million years isn't nearly enough time for something this size, so I'm going to arbitrarily estimate a time period of 10 to 25 million years for formation.
What gets there? Man, it's going to be tough. The prevailing currents and winds are going to be coming from the empty ocean between Hawaii and North America. So under normal circumstances, we'd assume that the big biological influence would be drift from America. But there's a huge gulf of distance, so that makes it very difficult. Plants and insects are going to have to survive an ocean passage of more than 2500 miles.
What this means is minimal colonization events. Very few species make it, and they make it very infrequently. The Hawaii Continent East Coast botany and insect catalogue is going to resemble American coastal somewhat, but with fewer families and more species within the families.
The best prospects for plant and insect travel will be from the South Pacific, islands like Samoa, Tuvalu, Fiji, Tonga the Solomons, etc. But the problem is that the prevailing winds and currents will be going the wrong way. This makes colonization events difficult to say the least. Thus, more infrequent, fewer species. To make matters worse, the South and West coast shorelines will be the dryest and most inhospitable shores, and the furthest away from any river systems that are fed by east coast mountains. Which means that South Pacific plants and insects, which will derive either from Australia or Asia, will have a lot of difficulty making it.
We'll likely see very limited imports of a few families, and speciation from there as they move up to increasingly wet and fertile niches inland or along the coasts.
As for animals - for mammals, nothing but bats, seals and maybe pacific otters. Lots of Birds and bird diversification, likely lots of flightless bird species, including creatures the size of sheep or calves. But no Rattite giants like the Moa.
Alternately, if we assume that it's a breakaway plate from a supercontinent, then we can make different assumptions about the biology. If its from a supercontinent, then it'll have a much greater starting sample of insects, plants and animals.
But then, where is it from, and when did it break away? Given its position in the central Pacific, there are two possibilities. First, it may have broken from North America and is moving west. Or it may have broken from Asia and is moving east. If all the Mountains and highlands are in the East, then likely, its broken from Asia. However, to get that far into the Pacific, it would have to have broken away a long time ago. Perhaps as early as 150 million to 200 million years ago.
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/150moll.jpghttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pacific_elevation.jpg
On the other hand, we know that the Indian Plate moved incredibly fast over 30 or 40 million years, across what might be a similar distance. So let's assume our timetable to get the Hawaiin continent into the middle of the Pacific is anywhere from 175 to 35 million years.
That makes for a lot of variables. Mammals didn't show up until 135 million years ago or so. So if Hawaii broke away before that, there may be no indigenous mammals, and the continent might be populated by birds, reptiles and resurgent dinosaurs. On the other hand, if the breakaway was between 130 and 65 million years ago, we can assume a mammal dominated ecology, perhaps loosely parallel to Australia, but quite unique. Or, if the breakaway was between 60 and 35 million years ago, then we can assume some relationship and common ancestors with Asian fauna, particularly the Asian fauna that flourished at the time of breakaway.
As to who gets there? Easy. The Polynesians. Probably somewhere around 500 BCE to 500 CE, likely multiple waves of colonisation as they explore coasts and interiors. The most accessible coasts for the Polynesians will not support polynesian tropical agriculture, so likely a profusion of hunter gatherer societies moving inland, competing with coastal explorers.
Penelope
Banned
Amazing work, once again, DValdron! 
I'd say that if it was broken off from Asia, we're going to be seeing a very mountainous and rocky Eastern half of Hawaii, and an archepilago off of the western coast. You could probably assume that if it had broken off, Indonesia is going to be the first part of these islands, so I'd say any tribal Indonesians are going to make the jump first, during the Ice Age.
Hawaii is also going to be disrupting the Pacific Hurricanes quite a bit. I'd say that California would be the West Coast's Florida for Hurricanes. We'd probably be seeing lots of hurricanes hitting Hawaii at full force, then reforming and hitting California and Southern Oregon as slightly less powerful hurricanes. Typhoons are pretty much out of the question, it's possible that a few tropical storms/minor typhoons might form off the coast of Hawaii, depending on it's shoreline, but they would not affect much.
The West Coast is probably going to be alot wetter and more eroded.
I'd say that if it was broken off from Asia, we're going to be seeing a very mountainous and rocky Eastern half of Hawaii, and an archepilago off of the western coast. You could probably assume that if it had broken off, Indonesia is going to be the first part of these islands, so I'd say any tribal Indonesians are going to make the jump first, during the Ice Age.
Hawaii is also going to be disrupting the Pacific Hurricanes quite a bit. I'd say that California would be the West Coast's Florida for Hurricanes. We'd probably be seeing lots of hurricanes hitting Hawaii at full force, then reforming and hitting California and Southern Oregon as slightly less powerful hurricanes. Typhoons are pretty much out of the question, it's possible that a few tropical storms/minor typhoons might form off the coast of Hawaii, depending on it's shoreline, but they would not affect much.
The West Coast is probably going to be alot wetter and more eroded.
Amazing work, once again, DValdron!
I'd say that if it was broken off from Asia, we're going to be seeing a very mountainous and rocky Eastern half of Hawaii, and an archepilago off of the western coast.
Tom hasn't depicted an archipelago. Of course, its open to him to redo his map.
Nope. Time's are all off. By the time of the ice ages, a breakaway Hawaii would already be out in the deep pacific, not too far away from where it is now. In fact, it would probably be completely isolated well before humans evolved. The Indonesia/Sunda plateau is geologically relatively recent and has formed from the stress produced by the collision of Australian and Asian plates.
The proto-Indonesians made it as far as New Guineau as long ago as 50,000 years ago. But they weren't really sea hoppers. Most of their sea voyages, like Australia and New Guineau, consisted of short jaunts to Islands within visible site.
The first peoples that could reasonably have found the Hawaii continent would have been the Laputa, about 3500 years ago. They were Austronesians from Taiwan most likely, and ancestral to the Polynesians. Closely related to the Malay and Malagsay.
Possible. What I can find suggests that OTL Hawaii is only at the edges of the Hurricane belt and well away from Cyclone and Typhoon belts. We might see some meteorlogical butterflies though, resulting in more local strom battering. My bet is that interaction with Bering Sea arctic waters will produce some nasty seasonal storms from the north.
The West Coast is probably going to be alot wetter and more eroded.[/QUOTE]
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Pretty quickly. Assume a starting population of 250 to 300 colonists, and double that every 30 years, in about 500 years you'd have a population of 30 million. Another 150 years, your population is up to 500 million or better.
of course, that might be iffy, if the interior is dry and semi-arid; rather different than what the Polynesians are used to... and of course, you have the usual wars and disease to slow down population growth a bit. I think you'd have an initial burst of population growth, until the limits of Polynesian agriculture are reached. 150 million seems like a lot for a pre-industrial small continent that is either tropical or arid...
Looks like the Spanish will be the First European power to find it.