Posted on 12/10/2006 5:29:49 PM PST by shrinkermd
Oxygen may be the clue to first appearance of large animals, says Queen’s prof
The sudden appearance of large animal fossils more than 500 million years ago – a problem that perplexed even Charles Darwin and is commonly known as “Darwin’s Dilemma” – may be due to a huge increase of oxygen in the world’s oceans, says Queen’s paleontologist Guy Narbonne, an expert in the early evolution of animals and their ecosystems.
In 2002, Dr. Narbonne and his research team found the world’s oldest complex life forms between layers of sandstone on the southeastern coast of Newfoundland. This pushed back the age of Earth’s earliest known complex life to more than 575 million years ago, soon after the melting of the massive “snowball” glaciers. New findings reported today shed light on why, after three billion years of mostly single-celled evolution, these large animals suddenly appeared in the fossil record.
In a paper published on-line in Science Express, Dr. Narbonne’s team argues that a huge increase in oxygen following the Gaskiers Glaciation 580 million years ago corresponds with the first appearance of large animal fossils on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland.
Now for the first time, geochemical studies have determined the oxygen levels in the world’s oceans at the time these sediments accumulated in Avalon. “Our studies show that the oldest sediments on the Avalon Peninsula, which completely lack animal fossils, were deposited during a time when there was little or no free oxygen in the world’s oceans,” says Dr. Narbonne. “Immediately after this ice age there is evidence for a huge increase in atmospheric oxygento at least 15 per cent of modern levels, and these sediments also contain evidence of the oldest large animal fossils.”
Also on the research team are Don Canfield (University of Southern Denmark) and Simon Poulton (Newcastle University, U.K.). Geochemical studies by Drs. Canfield and Poulton included measurements of iron speciation and sulphur isotopes to determine the oxygen levels in the world’s oceans at the time these sediments accumulated in Avalon.
The close connection between the first appearance of oxygenated conditions in the world’s oceans and the first appearance of large animal fossils confirms the importance of oxygen as a trigger for the early evolution of animals, the researchers say. They hypothesize that melting glaciers increased the amount of nutrients in the ocean and led to a proliferation of single-celled organisms that liberated oxygen through photosynthesis. This began an evolutionary radiation that led to complex communities of filter-feeding animals, then mobile bilateral animals, and ultimately to the Cambrian “explosion” of skeletal animals 542 million years ago.
Fine, tell you what, build a space shuttle, design some antibiotics, create a suspension bridge, explain the dynamics behind a pulsar, forecast weather, create a computer chip, all using the bible as your science book, and don't use any of the last 10,000 years of that secular science.
Your fear and loathing of thought, rational reasoning and the persuit of science is frightening. You would make a great Taliban member.
So, do you throw out all of mankind science and just go to living from the literal teachings of the bible?
Better disconnect that computer, the internet is not mentioned in the bible.
*Literal* and *true* are not the same things. Why do you try to force Christians into a box of having to believe every single word of the Bible is *literal*? That is such a commonly used evo tactic used to try to discredit Christians and Christianity.
All you're doing here is misapplying what Jesus said to specific individuals in specific circumstances, to believers everywhere and then demanding to know why they don't follow instructions given to someone else. Trying to manipluate a Christians behavior by bludgeoning them with Scripture figuring that they can't argue whenever someone quotes it at them is pretty dispicable.
You wouldn't, perhaps, have some documentation to back up your accusations, now would you?
Well, you are the one that said that the bible is your science book.
So, all science gained by mankind without using the bible must be evil, so you should discard it.
Just your history of posting and luddite take on any science that you disdain that isn't literal biblical.
Good one, metmom! How many times have we heard that!
You are confusing science and religion.
They have different methods, and different realms within which they operate.
You are trying to apply your religious beliefs, based on revelation and the supernatural, to the findings of science, which deals with the natural, perceivable, world.
Your religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
You always seem to draw the wrong conclusion. That happens with the deliberate attempt to 'not understand'. But then again, your defending deception at every turn, you can only give out what you take in. Good night.
Sure it teaches about many of those things. Not in great detail all the time but enough and in terms that most people in the world can understand.
For example:
-In the beginning... The big bang theory.
-The earth was *formless and void*-the proto earth and solar nebula theory
-Let there be light - light takes time to travel and a celestial body needs to be a certain mass to ignite so there would have been a time without light.
-God created man from the dust of the earth - Shaped from clay [origin of life]--http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1515522/posts
- Eccles 1:6 Blowing toward the south, then turning toward the north, the wind continues swirling along; and on its circular courses the wind returns. The circulating system of winds
The universe expanded - Isa 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
Evidence for Universe Expansion Found http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1597606/posts
Col 1:17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. - Gravitation, magnetism, strong and weak molecular forces.
Strange, isn't it, how scientists keep making these *discoveries* only to find the Bible there thousands of years before them telling them things that the people of those days had no way of knowing. How would they have gained the knowledge? It's almost like somebody would have had to tell them or something...
Specific examples of *Your fear and loathing of thought, rational reasoning and the persuit of science is frightening.* will do for _presently no screen name's_ posts.
Just your history of posting and luddite take on any science that you disdain that isn't literal biblical.
Show me what science I disdain. Specific examples will do here also. They're certainly much better than general unsubstaniated accusations.
Please explain what *literal Biblical* is and what that has to do with my views on science and the Bible.
No, you just can't accept scientific gains, they are a threat to your dogma.
Which is really sad.
Well, using the bible as a scientific text. Starting out by thinking that the world is only 5-10 thousand years old, not based on any evidence, just what the bible says...
You go ahead and live your life in scientific ignorance, if it suits you, but, you are becoming an intellectual fossil.
I don't need to insult creationists, you all do it with your irrational beliefs based on faith instead of the scientific method.
Oh, the bible really teaches us so much about science?
Where does it talk about all the planets and the moons? Plate tectonics? How to make medicine? Trigonometry? Fluid dynamics and modelling? Meterology? Metallurgy? Biology, DNA, xray technology, aeronautics, weather forecasting, electronics, gravity, etc.
Its a book written to be understood by illiterate herdsman 200 0 years ago, its not science.
Let there be light..nice where does it explain the speed of light and physics? God created man from dust of the earth, well, I guess we can just go tell all them physicans to throw out their books on biology and start studying dirt (hey if crevos can make stupid statements about evolution, I'm gonna do the same back at you.)
I want you to completely and totally live literally from the bible and abandon all science that is not expressly explained in detail within. Electronics and the internet aren't in the bible, so you should just sign off now.
LOL
No, I am using a technique that the creationists use, its maddening isn't it?
You ignore the science you want and embrace what you want. Can't have it both ways.
You are so threatened by knowledge.
"Who created God?"
I'm betting you already know my answer, but here it is anyway. I simply accept that God has always existed, and always will exist. I can't prove it, and maybe it's not logical, but I simply have no way of knowing. It's a matter of faith, since questions like this will never be answered in our lifetimes. The alternative belief is that everything in the whole universe just popped out of nowhere, for no reason, and that we are all just one big cosmic coincidence. The complexity of our universe, and all living things, is just too great for me to accept such an absurd premise. So, my answer is, I don't know, but I believe God is the architect of all things.
It turns out he has a paper on the subject, Fundamental Constants? The Mysteries of Pi and e. Quite interesting.
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