Alaska's 1964 earthquake lifted parts of the seafloor high enough to create new freshwater ponds, and marine sticklebacks moved into them; within 50 years the fish had evolved almost as far from their ocean ancestors as freshwater populations thousands of years older
Antarctica developed a continental-scale ice sheet 34 million years ago while Earth was about 5°C warmer than today — helped by slow-moving mantle waves that had spent more than 100 million years lifting its interior high enough for permanent ice to survive.