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Archaeoraptor Liaoningensis

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Archaeoraptor Liaoningensis Luke 19 39 And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. 40 And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. ©2000 Timothy G. Standish The Fossil Record Timothy G. Standish, Ph. D. ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Missing Links and the Fossil Record "But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.” Darwin C.R. 1872. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. “Ancient rocks clearly preserve less information, on average, than more recent rocks. However, if scaled to the stratigraphic level of the stage and the taxonomic level of the family, the past 540 million years of the fossil record provide uniformly good documentation of the life of the past.” ©2000 Timothy G. Standish M J Benton M A Wills & R Hitchin 2000 Quality of the fossil record through time What is a Fossil? Six major types: z Preserved organisms - The most uncommon fossils, including insects in amber, frozen mammoths, organisms preserved in peat bogs and tar pits z Preserved hard parts - Teeth, bones, shells or other hard parts that have been preserved over time z Impressions - Flattened outlines of the surface of an organism, frequently carbonized z Molds - After an organism has been surrounded by mud which turns to rock, the remains leech out of the rock, leaving only the mold z Casts - Molds that have been filled with another material after the remains have been removed produce casts z Trace fossils - Tracks burrows and other evidence of life left in the rock ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Preserved Organisms z Preserved organisms - The most uncommon fossils, including insects in amber, frozen mammoths, organisms preserved in Peat bogs and tar pits ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Preserved Hard Parts z Process - Burial z Some hard parts may become permineralized which involves the filling of porus areas with mineral deposits z Examples include: z Petrified (turned to stone) wood z Teeth z Bones z Shells ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Impressions z Impressions - Flattened outlines of the surface of an organism, frequently carbonized ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Molds z Molds - After an organism has been surrounded by mud which turns to rock, the remains leech out of the rock, leaving only the mold 1 A dead organism is buried 2 The remains are dissolved away leaving a mold ©2000 Timothy G. Standish A Brachiopod Mold z No part of the original brachiopod remains z Note the detail preserved in this fine grained rock ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Casts z Casts - Molds that have been filled with another material after the remains have been removed produce casts 1 A dead organism is buried 2 The remains are dissolved away leaving a mold 3 The mold fills with minerals producing a cast ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Casts of Brachiopods z Sometimes what looks like preserved hard parts may still be casts Crystals Growth lines Top Bottom ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Casts of Trilobites z Casts of many organisms are known z Trilobite casts serve as excellent examples of the detail that can be preserved in casts. ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Plant Fossils Sphenophyta ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Trace Fossils z Trace fossils - Tracks burrows and other evidence of life left in the rock z Provide information about the behavior of organisms ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Problems With Interpretation Of The Fossil Record z No one was there when the fossils were formed z Testing theories about how and when fossils formed is difficult in many cases and impossible in others z Multiple interpretations of data are common z Fundamentally different world views and lack of rigorous testing of interpretations, leads to interpretation driven strongly©2000 Timothy by G. Standish Dating Fossils z Two methods: z Relative dating - When a previously unknown fossil is found in strata with other fossils of “known age,” the age of the newly discovered fossil can be inferred from the “known age” of the fossils it is associated with. Relative dating is done in terms of the relative appearance of organisms in the fossil record. (“Archaeopteryx appears after Latimeria, but before Australopithecus.”) z Absolute dating - Involves assigning dates in terms of years to fossils. This most frequently involves radiometric dating techniques. (“This Archaeopteryx fossil is 150 million years old.”) ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Radiometric Dating z Assumptions: z Constant isotope decay rates over time z Initial isotope concentrations can be known z Isotope decay is the only factor that alters relative concentrations of isotopes and their breakdown products ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Formation Of The Geological Column z As sediment is washed away from mountains and other zones of erosion, it is collected in depositional basins z The first sediment to settle in a basin is assumed to be the oldest with newer strata being deposited on top z Going from the bottom to the top of the geological column should be a trip from the most ancient times to the present z There is no place on earth where the entire geological column is present, it has been pieced together using multiple sequences of strata from multiple locations to provide a complete seq©2000uence Timothy G. Standish Formation Of The Geological Column Zone of erosion Deposition basin Geological Strata z This model makes the uniformitarian assumption that current conditions existed in the past ©2000 Timothy G. Standish The Geological Column Era Period Representative Major Events Miocene Proliferation of flowering plants Cenozoic Oligocene Continued mammal modernization first apes Eocene Major mammals: bats whales and monkeys Tertiary Paleocene Survival of frogs and angiosperms Extinction of dinosaurs and ammonoids Cretaceous 100 - Mammals, cycads, conifers, angiosperms Mesozoic Jurassic Dinosaurs 200 - Triassic Conifers, first dinosaurs Permian Extinction of 95% of marine organisms 300 - Carboniferous Coal “forests,” amphibia and reptiles Phanerozoic 400 - Paleozoic Devonian “The age of fish” small land plants Silurian Jawless fish, strange land plants Ordovician Many marine organisms including clams 500 - Cambrian All phyla, complex organisms e.g. Trilobites Proterozoic Few fossils, no Cambrian ancestors Millions of Years Before Present Years Millions of Ediacarian fauna (odd marine organisms) Very few fossils, all one-celled Archean Many pseudo fossils ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Precambrian The Upper Geological Column Era Period Epoch Representative Major Events Holocene Modern humans Pleistocene“Ice Age” Pliocene Appearance of Australopithecus Quaternary Miocene Proliferation of flowering plants Cenozoic Oligocene Continued mammal modernization first apes Tertiary Eocene Major mammals: bats whales and monkeys Phanerozoic Paleocene Extinction of dinosaurs and many families ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Trends In The Geological Column z Organisms at the bottom look less like those today than those at the top z Moving from bottom to top, the number of fossil species goes up z Moving from bottom to top, the number of fossil phyla and possibly classes goes down z Moving from bottom to top, at first there are no land dwelling organisms, then their numbers increase ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Using Molecular Data To Reconstruct Evolutionary History z If two things look the same, it is hardly surprising if their plans look the same z When Boeing 757 plans are compared with those for a 767 their relationship will be obvious z The plans look the same as the planes look the same z Comparison of DNA from organisms that look the same reveals similarities as the DNA codes for similar organisms! z DNA data is not intrinsically better than morphological data in reconstructing ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Are There Missing Links In The Geological Column? z Not exactly, although many attempts have been made at saying some things are z The traditional depiction of the evolution of horses worked out by O. C. Marsh is highly questionable: z “The most famous of all equid [horse] trends, ‘gradual reduction of the side toes,’ is flatly fictitious.” – Simpson G. G. 1953. The Major Features of Evolution. New York and London: Columbia University Press, p 263 ©2000 Timothy G. Standish More On Horses “The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information--what appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appears to be much more complex and much less gradualistic.” Raup D M Conflicts between Darwin and paleontology©2000 Timothy Field G. Standish “Missing Links” Are Still Missing ”The Cambrian explosion, marks the inception of modern multicellular life. Within just a few million years, nearly every major kind of animal anatomy appears in the fossil record for the first time . The Precambrian record is now sufficiently good that the old rationale about undiscovered sequences of smoothly transitional forms will no longer wash." Stephen J Gould ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Young Sinosauropteryx prima Yixian formation, lower Cretaceous, Liaoning Province, China z Found in Down-like 1996 feathers? z The ruffled dark ridge above the spine shows what may have been feathers ©2000 Timothy G.
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