Have you ever wondered why we don’t find fossils in the Appalachian mountains?
The truth is, we do, they’re just not the kind of fossils you might think of—there are no mammals, no dinosaurs, no reptiles. There’s something else entirely. 🧵

See, the Appalachian mountains are old. Yes, all mountains are old, but the Appalachian mountains are *incomprehensibly old*.
They mostly look like this, which leads a lot of people to say they’re pretty lame, as far as mountains go. They aren’t dramatic.

For those unaware, the Appalachian mountain range extends over what is now the eastern US, reaching up into Canada.

But many people don’t realize that the same original mountain chain also reaches to *Europe*.
Wait, what? How is that possible?
This is possible because plate tectonics separated this mountain range.
The Appalachian Mountains are older than the Atlantic Ocean.

In fact, the Appalachian mountains are 480 million years old. For context, that's about 100 million years before the first animals walked on land.