The Late Cretaceous led to cotton, cotton led to voting districts

This series of maps is absolutely fascinating to me. Here we have an intriguing interrelationship between large-scale geology, economics, and human geography that influences current social and political realities. Who would have thought that geophysical processes from the Late Cretaceous period (99.6 – 65.5 million years ago) could be shown to have such a direct human connection in contemporary society?

This is another example* of the value of representing complex, interconnected issues in simplified visual formats. Not every complex issue is effectively represented visually, but when it works, it really aids in understanding.

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* See this post for another example

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