It all happened so quickly. The Earth went into a series of convulsions. Mountains rose and fell and whole continents were ripped apart. Some pushed from the equator to the poles, others from the poles to the equator. Australia rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees, leaving its north shore pointing west.
Scientists think centrifugal and tangential forces shifted Earth's solid mass.
Antarctica, India, Africa, South America and parts of Asia also turned. The entire North America continent shifted several thousand miles to the north. As a result, continents drifted into different climatic zones, causing all life to fight for survival as the weather changed dramatically. As they adapted to their new environment, new creatures great and small evolved to take over a planet they would dominate for half a billion years. Scientists at the California Institute of Technology say all that happened during an incredibly brief period of 15 million years, a little over 500 million years ago.