Timeline (Alternity)

A list of major differences in the Alternity timeline, ranging from prehistoric to modern (late-'90s) times.

Economical

 * With Zaire having achieved greater stability since the ousting of former President Mobutu Sese Seko in the Three Weeks' War of April 1992, a group of mining firms - with the approval and backing of the Zairean government and the UN - have begun speculating on the vast mineral deposits located across the nation. Initial estimates place the raw, untapped mineral deposits' worth at a staggering $20-24 trillion, more than enough to potentially revitalize the African continent and the world at large. Once it and its economy to fully stabilize, the Zairean government has agreed to allow extraction of these deposits on the condition that only 'clean mining' processes be utilized, and that a portion of the wealth extracted remain theirs.

Geographic/Geological

 * In an as-yet unidentified period in prehistoric times (referred to the Instability Age), a series of geologic disturbances uplift several landmasses and islands - previously destined to be submerged beneath rising seas - that remain dry land at the end of the last Ice Age. The most notable of these included the Zealandia and Kerguelen microcontinents, the Hawaiian island of Maui, Eratosthenes Island, the New England Islands, and the Serranilla Islands. These events also caused unexpected volcanic activity to create new island chains and expand pre-existing ones, activity that continues (at greatly reduced levels) to the present day, most notably in the New England, Bermuda, Laurentian, and Surtsey Islands. But this same activity also suppressed island formation in certain areas as well. The most notable result is that the Cape Verde Islands do not exist.


 * This same period also served to create a fissure (the Baffin Trench) that separated the northeast corner of the North American Tectonic Plate into today's Greenland Tectonic Plate. As a result, there is greater seismic activity in the region than OTL, which is why Danish and Norwegian colonial authorities chose to locate the capital at Narsaq in the south instead of Nuuk, the latter of which was struck by a tsunami in 1879 that nearly wiped out the city.


 * At another unidentified period in prehistoric times, more favorable environmental conditions allow several large lakes to form and/or persist into modern times, namely Lake Bonneville in the Utah Desert of the US, Lake Altai in Russia (West Siberian Glacial Lake), Lake Qattara and a much larger, natural Lake Nasser in Egypt, and Lake Kalahari in northern South Africa. These same events also aided in the formation of the modern-day Tanami Lake System in northern Australia.


 * Around 4800 BC, rising sea levels in the Black Sea fail to breach the Kerch land barrier and flood the low-lying depression now known as the Azov Valley.

Climate

 * The most notable climate difference from OTL is an ice-free Greenland (with the exception of the northern coast) and an Arctic Sea coastline of Russia that is ice-locked for almost three-quarters out of every year.

Tropical cyclones

 * The geologic upheavals of the Instability Age iniated volcanic activity that continues to this day, and has in the process slightly raised sea surface temperatures (SSTs) worldwide in the past several hundred years. As a result, tropical cyclones worldwide, mostly in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans (typhoons and hurricanes) form earlier than their respective seasons in OTL, and as such it is not uncommon for Atlantic hurricanes to form in March, April, or December. Extreme examples of early hurricane formation have been observed with increasing frequency in the past decade, notably Hurricane Andrew, a Category 1 hurricane that formed in January 1992.