Santa Rosae

Santa Rosae was an island in the Santa Barbara Channel off the coast of California .

The island existed during the last ice age known in America as the Wisconsin glaciation when sea levels were significantly lower. It probably had a size of 1,842 square kilometers and was seven  kilometers off the coast. After sea levels rose at the end of the Pleistocene around 9,500 years ago, Santa Rosae was partially inundated, and its remains have since formed the four northern Channel Islands of San Miguel , Santa Rosa , Santa Cruz and Anacapa .

Populations of land mammals lived on the island such as the island gray fox , which is still endemic to the Channel Islands today, and the extinct dwarf mammoth . It was therefore debated whether the island was ever connected to mainland California. Anacapa Island is separated from the mainland by a 230-meter-deep canal, which must have been over 100 meters deep even during the Ice Age. It is now assumed that mammoths like today's elephants could swim well enough to cover a distance of a few kilometers.

Since the remains of Arlington Springs Man were found on the island of Santa Rosa and dated to an age of 13,000 years, there has been speculation that the foxes were brought to the island by humans. With the help of various archaeological and anatomical investigations and the analysis of mitochondrial DNA , biologists were able to prove that the foxes must have reached the northern Channel Islands 16,000 years ago before humans colonized the American continent.

literature

• Allan A. Schoenherr, C. Robert Feldmeth, Michael J. Emerson: Natural History of the Islands of California. University of California Press, 1999.

Coordinates: 34 ° 0 ′  N , 120 ° 0 ′  W