Posted on 07/06/2010 2:59:07 AM PDT by jerry557
The discovery in Gabon of more than 250 fossils in an excellent state of conservation has provided proof, for the first time, of the existence of multicellular organisms 2.1 billion years ago. This finding represents a major breakthrough: until now, the first complex life forms (made up of several cells) dated from around 600 million years ago.
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By studying the sedimentary structures of this site, the scientists have shown that these organisms lived in a shallow marine environment (20 to 30 meters), often calm but periodically subjected to the combined influence of tides, waves and storms. In order to be able to develop 2.1 billion years ago and become differentiated to a degree never attained previously, the authors suggest that these life forms probably benefited from the significant but temporary increase in oxygen concentration in the atmosphere, which occurred between 2.45 and 2 billion years ago. Then, 1.9 billion years ago, the level of oxygen in the atmosphere fell suddenly.
Until now, it has been assumed that organized multicellular life appeared around 0.6 billion years ago and that before then the Earth was mainly populated by microbes (viruses, bacteria, parasites, etc.). This new discovery moves the cursor of the origin of multicellular life back by 1.5 billion years and reveals that cells had begun to cooperate with each other to form more complex and larger structures than single-celled organisms. Several research avenues now need to be explored: understanding the history of the Gabonese basin and why the necessary conditions were gathered to enable this organized and complex life to exist; further exploring the site to enhance the collection of fossils; but also comparing the history of the Earth's oxygenation with the mineralization of clays. The most urgent task, however, remains the protection of this exceptional site.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
;’)
It's also awfully convenient that they survived long enough for American Indians to have seen them and still be scared of them when Lewis and Clark went west, but no European explorer or settler ever ran into one.
I would suggest they were visiting the Earth about 450,000 years ago.
Or simply an artist's active imagination. What's your basis for drawing the conclusion that it is more likely that the drawing was from direct observation of a living animal, and not from an artist's rendering of an animal from observed fossils or that it was an invention of the artist's imagination?
What evidence leads you to believe that one possibility is reasonable, and the other two not?
The dinos weren’t alone.
Extinct Thylacine petroglyph depicted at Murujuga, Dampier, West Australia.
These creatures became extinct on the Australian mainland thousands of years before European settlement of the continent, but survived on the island of Tasmania.
They likely preferred the dry eucalyptus forests, wetlands, and grasslands in continental Australia. Indigenous Australian rock paintings indicate that these animals lived throughout mainland Australia and New Guinea. Proof of their existence in mainland Australia came from a desiccated carcass that was discovered in a cave in the Nullarbor Plain in Western Australia in 1990. Carbon dating revealed its remains to be about 3,300 years old.
Aboriginal cave painting of a Thylacine and its cub in the Pilbara region of West Australia dating back 6,000 years.
Fossils don't have stripes. What is it that you find so threatening in the theory that pre-historic people depicted the creatures THEY SAW!
I don’t find it frightening at all. I find tacit asssertion that it was impossible for them to have drawn something they didn’t actually see to be dubious. We do it all the time. Why couldn’t they?
Be careful what you ask for.
AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
The likelihood of that all happening by chance is zero.
Who’s the dude with the horns standing in front of the triceratops?
The idea of losing evolution/evoloserism as a viable belief system has implications which impact some peoples' lifestyles...
Identical? There are some rough similarities, but a lot of the proportions are all wrong. If it was identical, then it would not be a coincidence. Saying that rough cave drawing is identical to a living triceratops is beyond ridiculous. As far as them saying it had red fur makes it accurate, how do you know that? They could have just as easily said it had purple scales, and you’d have the same evidence to show they were right - none.
Then so does the idea that evolution happened.
“It isn’t a question of drawing something they never saw. It’s a question of drawing something they never saw and by pure chance the something turn out to be identical to some known dinosaur type, and their oral traditions describe the creature down to details like a saw-blade back, great spiked tail, and red fur.
The likelihood of that all happening by chance is zero.”
—What “known dinosaur type” has saw-blades and red fur? Also, the only descriptions I can find that say the creature had “saw-blades” are very recent descriptions by people trying to say it was a stegosaurus. IMO the rock drawing looks far closer to the backward-pointing scales of the alligator in #42 than the enormous saw-blades of the stego in #6, and most descriptions I find simply say “scales”. There’s also no spikes in the tail of the drawing, other than the continuation of the same scales seen on the back, as in the alligator. Mishipishu is usually described as a feline with scales, which hardly sounds like a stego. It sounds like the usual practice of many ancient cultures to depict new creatures by combining features of two or more known creatures, such as with the griffin, or chimaera, or Pegasus, or unicorn, or minotaur. In this case it’s a combination of an alligator and panther.
The more I think about this the more I’d like to know just what they found. Was it truly multicellular organisms or was it really colonies of unicellular life? This sure changes the traditional timeline.
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