AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -When one-third of the Australian continent was submerged, ancestors of the world’s oldest living cultures were there to see it. Lands that once were wide open to exploration and home to many people flooded as the ocean crept inland following the last ice age, some 10, 000 years ago.

Detailed explanation-2: -Calculations show that Earth’s oceans may have been 1 to 2 times bigger than previously thought and the planet may have been completely covered in water.

Detailed explanation-3: -During the Cretaceous period (144 to 65 million years ago) a great inland sea stretched over one quarter of the country, inhabited by large underwater creatures and brimming with sea life. The water dried up long before humans came to Australia but many clues of the ancient sea bed have been left behind.

Detailed explanation-4: -While modern Earth’s surface is about 70 percent water-covered, the new research indicates that our planet was a true ocean world some 3 billion years ago. At this point, only scattered archipelagos breached our global ocean’s briny surface.