Category Archives: fossils

Single-celled trace fossils?

Posted on November 29, 2008 by Chris Rowan

Remember those controversional macro- and trace fossils from the 2 billion year-old Stirling formation? They seemed to offer the intriguing possibility that multicellular life may have popped into being far earlier in Earth history than is generally supposed. However, this … Continue reading →

Categories: fossils, geology

Telling a dinosaur footprint from a hole in the ground

Posted on October 21, 2008 by Chris Rowan

How do palaeontologists know?
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Categories: fossils, geology, paper reviews

The Stirling fauna: big critters from the dawn of time?

Posted on September 19, 2008 by Chris Rowan

I really wasn’t intending to leave Geopuzzle 14 hanging out unanswered on the interweb for as long as it has – and not just because my delay has apparently put my beer stash in jeopardy. The answer is actually both … Continue reading →

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

Geopuzzle #14

Posted on August 15, 2008 by Chris Rowan

This authors of the paper the figure below comes from claim that it’s a fossil of some kind: Do you agree? What do you think it is, and how old do you think it is?

Categories: fossils, geology, geopuzzling

Tectonics shown to drive changes in biodiversity

Posted on August 6, 2008 by Chris Rowan

No surprise to anyone – except biologists, apparently.
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Categories: Cenozoic, fossils, geology, paper reviews, tectonics

Archean bacterial mats under the hammer

Posted on May 6, 2008 by Chris Rowan

Geovandalism rears it’s ugly head once more.
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Categories: Archean, fieldwork, fossils, geology, paper reviews, past worlds, ranting

Ye gods…

Posted on January 28, 2008 by Chris Rowan

There’s geovandalism – and then there’s sheer f***ing insanity. Thousands of pre-dinosaur fossils are scattered in the rocks of the Guryul ravine, rated by geologists as the world’s premier site for the study of species from the Permian period (299-251 … Continue reading →

Categories: antiscience, fossils, geology

Sadly, not sandworms

Posted on January 28, 2008 by Chris Rowan

The answer to Friday’s geopuzzler
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Categories: Archean, fossils, geology, past worlds, Proterozoic

Bacteria and black smokers go back a long way

Posted on August 21, 2007 by Chris Rowan

I tempered the other week’s repost on some rather impressive 1.5 billion year-old black smoker chimneys, and the fossilised microbes found within them, with some words of caution about the ‘clues to the origin of life’ spin that the discovery … Continue reading →

Categories: fossils, geology, paper reviews, Proterozoic