[_ Old Earth _] Biodiversity

[reznwerks]

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March 11, 2005 news releases | receive our news releases by email | science beat


Fossil Records Show Biodiversity Comes and Goes
Contact: Lynn Yarris (510) 486-5375, lcyarris@lbl.gov

BERKELEY, CA – A detailed and extensive new analysis of the fossil records of marine animals over the past 542 million years has yielded a stunning surprise. Biodiversity appears to rise and fall in mysterious cycles of 62 million years for which science has no satisfactory explanation. The analysis, performed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley, has withstood thorough testing so that confidence in the results is above 99-percent.


http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Arc ... rsity.html

 

[Barbarian]

Hint: Find maps of the Earth as it existed at these times, and see what you find.

They were talking about marine organisms. And since marine life is most common along coasts and on continental shelves, the total length of coastline will be roughly correlated with diversity of marine organisms.

The more isolated coastline, the more unique marine fauna.

 

[reznwerks]

maps

Hint: Find maps of the Earth as it existed at these times, and see what you find.

They were talking about marine organisms. And since marine life is most common along coasts and on continental shelves, the total length of coastline will be roughly correlated with diversity of marine organisms.

The more isolated coastline, the more unique marine fauna.

I guess the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley must have overlooked these facts. I hope they realize what they did before they go any further.

 

[Barbarian]

Or perhaps the Barbarian is overlooking something they didn't.

But it looks to me like a fairly good fit.

 

[SyntaxVorlon]

Re: maps

Hint: Find maps of the Earth as it existed at these times, and see what you find.

They were talking about marine organisms. And since marine life is most common along coasts and on continental shelves, the total length of coastline will be roughly correlated with diversity of marine organisms.

The more isolated coastline, the more unique marine fauna.

I guess the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley must have overlooked these facts. I hope they realize what they did before they go any further.

Plate movement doesn't move that fast or change coastline length with that regularity, it's probably more related to various dieouts, comet/asteroid impacts etc that cause damage to ecosystems. If it's marine life it could be something to do with chemical balances in the Earth's oceans.