Category Archives: fossils

Snowball Earth no problem for sponges

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Chris Rowan

Evidence from numerous sources seems to be converging to suggest that sponges – the first animals – emerged much earlier than the beginning of the Cambrian, and apparently sailed through severe climatic events in the Cryogenian without much trouble at all. Continue reading →

Categories: fossils, geology, paper reviews, past worlds, Proterozoic

How do we know Gabon’s ‘multicellular’ fossils are 2.1 billion years old?

Posted on July 2, 2010 by Chris Rowan

The fossil record prior to 550 million years ago is so patchy that every discovery is going to cause some fanfare. That is certainly case with these odd looking things, which have been proclaimed in Nature as the oldest mulitcellular … Continue reading →

Categories: fossils, geology, paper reviews, past worlds, Proterozoic

Neoproterozoic signs of life

Posted on February 12, 2010 by Chris Rowan

Whilst the the dawn of the Cambrian clearly marked the diversification of mobile, active animals and biomineralisers, the story of their first origins appear to have begun much earlier.
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Categories: fossils, geology, paper reviews, past worlds, Proterozoic

Coal and the fossil record of climate change in the Canadian High Arctic

Posted on January 31, 2010 by Anne Jefferson

Spectacular fossilized forests in the Canadian High Arctic provide clues to life on a warmer earth. Unless we mine their coal in order to heat our planet back to the Eocene.
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