At 04:19 PM 08/02/01 +0000, Ken Kinman wrote:In any case one would hardly expect herbivorous dinosaurs to inhabit freshly erupted lava fields until a reasoable vegetation cover had evolved, again a matter of centuries, even in a tropical climate.
Ronald I. Orenstein replied:
Is this true? In Hawaii it certainly does not necessarily take that long for lava flows to re-vegetate. Under the right conditions I think it is more likely to be decades than centuries (you can see this on the rainier parts of the big Island); ferns can establish themselves fairly quickly.