Yukon fossils represent a pivotal moment in evolution
June 12, 2011 at 10:30 am
(This post was last modified: June 12, 2011 at 10:31 am by Ryft.)
Boswell, Randy (2011, June 11). "Yukon fossils represent a pivotal moment in evolution." Postmedia News.
A Canadian mountaintop has yielded hundreds of microscopic fossils representing, more clearly than ever before, a pivotal moment in evolution: the birth of biomineralization, a critical development for animal life that eventually allowed organisms—including humans—to exploit the Earth's elemental ingredients to create bones, teeth or protective shells.
A team of U.S. and British scientists led by Phoebe Cohen ... probed microfossils previously excavated ... [from] exposed rock layers formed about 800 million years ago. Created from the sediments of a shallow, oxygen-starved sea, the Yukon rocks have preserved the remains of armour-like mineral plates manufactured by an ancient species of single-celled eukaryotes ...
"These fossils represent the oldest definitive evidence of active biomineralization—that is, of an organism taking in a mineral and making a hard part out of it (as opposed to precipitating a mineral on its outside, a sort of passive process)," Cohen said ... "There are other pieces of evidence that are similar in age, but are less conclusive than these (Yukon) fossils."
Canada's great geological diversity—including some of the world's oldest rocks and vast tracts of exposed fossils—attracts many international researchers working to record the story of evolution as it unfolded at microscopic scale in the dawning era of life.
Read more, http://www.canada.com/technology/Yukon+f...z1P4Tejrt2
A Canadian mountaintop has yielded hundreds of microscopic fossils representing, more clearly than ever before, a pivotal moment in evolution: the birth of biomineralization, a critical development for animal life that eventually allowed organisms—including humans—to exploit the Earth's elemental ingredients to create bones, teeth or protective shells.
A team of U.S. and British scientists led by Phoebe Cohen ... probed microfossils previously excavated ... [from] exposed rock layers formed about 800 million years ago. Created from the sediments of a shallow, oxygen-starved sea, the Yukon rocks have preserved the remains of armour-like mineral plates manufactured by an ancient species of single-celled eukaryotes ...
"These fossils represent the oldest definitive evidence of active biomineralization—that is, of an organism taking in a mineral and making a hard part out of it (as opposed to precipitating a mineral on its outside, a sort of passive process)," Cohen said ... "There are other pieces of evidence that are similar in age, but are less conclusive than these (Yukon) fossils."
Canada's great geological diversity—including some of the world's oldest rocks and vast tracts of exposed fossils—attracts many international researchers working to record the story of evolution as it unfolded at microscopic scale in the dawning era of life.
Read more, http://www.canada.com/technology/Yukon+f...z1P4Tejrt2
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when
called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
(Oscar Wilde)
called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
(Oscar Wilde)
