"The land before time: That's how the archipelago of Galapagos feels when you hop off a Zodiac onto one of its islands. Giant tortoises, marine iguanas, pelicans and the only penguins north of the equator - all of them call this landscape of lava beds, layered ash that looks like a cake from Bake Off and bizarre poisonous flora home. A T. rex wouldn't feel out of place here."
"These ancient islands were created over the course of millions of years because of a hot spot in the Nazca Plate, where magma breaks through, forming volcanos. Eruptions of lava and ash formed the islands. As the islands began to drift away, new ones formed. Over millennia, seeds from plant life on the feet of birds or carried by wind and animals drifting on forest debris from the mainland began to populate the islands."
"I was raised on young-earth creationism, a hardcore, "the earth is 6,000 years old, Noah had an ark and evolution was a lie of the devil" kind of creationism. I've long left this idea. When I entered my 20s, I decided to learn more about the biological diversity of the archipelago. That became an early step away from the creation story that dominated my old world, one where evolution was unacceptable."
The Galapagos presents prehistoric-feeling terrain populated by giant tortoises, marine iguanas, pelicans and the only penguins north of the equator amid lava beds and toxic flora. Volcanic hotspot activity on the Nazca Plate produced successive islands over millions of years, with eruptions of lava and ash forming new land as older islands drifted away. Seeds and organisms arrived via birds, wind and debris from the mainland, while island-to-island isolation fostered separate evolutionary paths. Encounters with the archipelago's biodiversity played a role in moving from young-earth creationist beliefs toward acceptance of evolutionary evidence, linked to Darwin's observations.
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