It turns out that in a soil sample that was also tested in Darwin's time, there is much evidence of microscopic life from before the Cambrian explosion, we had to wait for the instrumentation of the 21st century
A solution to the puzzle known as "Darwin's Dilemma" was revealed by scientists at the University of Oxford in an article published in the Journal of the British Geological Society.
"As to the question why we do not find rich fossil deposits belonging to the period... the one that preceded the Cambrian system, I cannot give a satisfactory answer" wrote Charles Darwin in his book "The Origin of Species" in 1859, a paragraph that summed up what became known as "Darwin's dilemma" - the absence of fossils In layers from the Precambrian era (from 4.5 billion years ago to 542 million years ago). If Darwin's theory of natural selection is correct, life evolved gradually over millions of years. However, the Cambrian period that began about 542 million years ago seems to herald a rapid increase in the variety of species, an event known as the "Cambrian explosion."
Darwin could find no evidence of fossils from before the Cambrian period, and the mystery continued to baffle paleontologists. The research conducted by Richard Ballou, and Martin Brazier from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, focused on the rock formations in Shropshire, England, known as the Longmyndian Supergroup. These rocks were examined in Darwin's time by the geologist J.W. Salter, who suspected that they contained the remains of Precambrian life, but he was unable to detect anything but trace fossils - an unusual sign, possibly left behind by living creatures.
In the study, the researchers used Salter's collection as well as additional soil samples from the site, and identified microscopic fossils with an excellent level of preservation. The fossils represent a wide range of microbial life from the Ediacaran period, the period immediately preceding the Cambrian (630-542 million years ago). They have been preserved in a number of ways. Some of them were compressed under an alluvial layer until they formed a sort of thin layer of carbonaceous sediment on the surface of the rock. Others have been preserved in three dimensions and have undergone permineralization, a process in which the water containing minerals seeped into spaces within the living creature and evaporated, leaving behind mineral deposits that turn into hard fossils. Some were also preserved as rings and components within a layer of sediments, and they appear as sharp furrows on flat beds, or as the mirror image of the furrows.
It is still not clear how the microorganisms kept themselves alive. Apparently they lived in a shallow marine environment, they survived either by turning light into energy in a way similar to what plants do today, or by turning organic components into energy as animals do, including humans. It is still unclear whether these microorganisms belong to algae, fungi or a wide variety of living bacteria.
Darwin himself was convinced that the fossils from the Precambrian would eventually be found and he believed that this was a time when the world was teeming with living things. Despite the importance of the Longmyndian supergroup in solving the dilemma identified by Darwin, only now, thanks to sophisticated methods for examining fossils, the secret of the rocks has been revealed and the fossils they hid from Darwin have been discovered.
18 תגובות
to Parsiphal (17)
God has no age, and the Torah is not a history book. The Torah does not just tell about the creation of the world, there are reasons for this. One of them is, "because of the power of his deeds he told his people to give them an inheritance of the Gentiles" (Bereshit 13.8:XNUMX, Rashi Divor beginning with 'Bereshit', in the name of Rabbi Yitzchak who quotes from Psalms XNUMX). The Torah came to say that God He created the world and everything in it. It doesn't matter whether it took six days or whether it took XNUMX billion years - the principle remains and that's the main thing God has no reason to extend the description of creation more than what is written there.
*"More than 4 billion years" is also true, but is more appropriate for the age of the earth.
To 1
Not really…
The world has existed for more than 4 billion years.
6000 years is the age of God.
to 15 (A. Ben-Ner). The variety of plants that exist today is because of sexual reproduction,
It is quite likely that we have no fossil evidence, but this is probably the reason for the "explosion":
The "forces of evolution" then developed the species.
The question that arises is whether it is possible to hypothesize which reasons
led to the eruption of the "Cambrian explosion".
The science of the past is not XNUMX% accurate in terms of dates, but that does not mean it is not true.
[ It is important to emphasize that they found fossils before the Cambrian explosion (not everyone bothers to read the comments). Does anyone have any idea what the earliest fossil found is a eukaryote bacterium or what?
This is very interesting because we probably don't have (and probably won't have) the first replicating molecule, but such a finding can bring us closer to a hypothesis about the nature of the organism's "farm"
New discovery: The Cambrian explosion happened 630 million years ago.
I heard on the 23:00 news that sponges dating back 630 million years were discovered. It is published in the current Nature. I remember that the duration of the bang, although it hovers around 600, goes up and down each time according to the various revelations. I think that 40 years ago it was around 630, dropped to 600 and stabilized in the last few years in the area of 540 and now 630 again.
To 5
Maybe we are all urban but you use your flashlight while we grope in the dark
And we'll keep searching until we find the truth, you won't be there.
You wanted to say: I understand that I don't understand and thus I am considered to understand even though I don't understand :) As long as I admit condition 1 that Harini accepts the 'yoke' of the axioms "within the known laws of nature".
The supplier:
Your words were said to express criticism of those who do understand, and actually hidden in them was the claim that even those who say they understand do not really understand.
My response is intended to set things straight and to say that even if you don't understand - others actually do.
To help you understand, let me ask you.
Do you accept the assumption that the laws of nature have been operating in the universe since creation?
If so - then you also understand that certain things have been happening for billions of years.
The question now is only what can be concluded from this fact in relation to the current question.
It turns out that a lot can be deduced because there are formations in the rocks that there is no way in nature to produce them without using animals and it is very easy to produce them using animals.
The laws of nature also teach us about the age of rocks and again, within the framework of the known laws of nature - it was not possible to get these rock formations (on their location in the ground and their chemical and isotopic composition) without so many years having passed since their formation.
All this, of course, in the most general terms possible.
To really understand you have to really delve into it and you are welcome to do so.
Do not understand. Is that the point?
Did you lose your mind?
That you are ignorant and uneducated is not the point. This is your personal problem that you are responsible for and no one else in the world.
Why is he showing off? I don't understand.
That's the point.
To 5:
Ok - but why are you showing it off?
to 1. Oops. Of course it was Jupiter and Venus went for a walk hand in hand, Mars
Whined to the boss, apparently my memory isn't what it used to be.
It is not clear to me how it is even possible to arrive at such long-term speculations dating back years, billions, millions, let's talk about it with such certainty, of course, to casually jump in speculations as if it were a trivial inventory count.
My logic just doesn't grasp this opinionated retro-post-prophetic, scientific/religious 'security' for all its fallacies.
to Aria The innovation is that it was discovered in samples that were in the hands of Darwin's colleague and he missed the discovery that was right under his nose.
to 1. The world was created 8000 years and two days ago; Wednesday got longer
2000 years because of the chaos in the sky, she was very hot with her mother-in-law and the boss
Hafrid, Venus and Mars went for a walk in the sky, Michael had to pick up
The water that spilled from the bucket (what is today called the Milky Way) and I fixed the
The puncture in the big wagon (and believe me, there were many more blunders). day
Thursday lasted two days because we had to destroy all the models
The experimental ones that the boss designed for birds and escaped from the laboratory (what the scientists
called "dinosaurs").
First, it is important to emphasize that the Cambrian explosion refers to the phenomenon according to which multicellular, complex creatures, with different organs and configurations, appeared as if all at once about 540 million years ago, while for a period of billions of years before that, life was conducted at the level of bacteria, unicellular, etc. - at most something like tiny worms at the end of the aforementioned period. The phenomenon has been known for many years and fossils of many different tiny organisms have been discovered a long time ago. Therefore It is not clear what the exciting innovation in this publication is: they discovered at a certain site more microscopic Precambrian fossils...
infidels The world was created no more than 6000 years ago.