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Anomalocaris
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A creature thought to be the fiercest predator of its day might not have been quite so fierce after all, according to palaeontologist Whitey Hagadorn of Amherst College, Massachusetts. Anomalocaris, a strange shrimp-like animal that lived around half a billion years ago and could grow up to a metre in length, is often portrayed as the Tyrannosaurus rex of the Cambrian, hunting and eating hard-shelled prey such as trilobites. But Hagadorn's models suggest that Anomalocaris's mouth was incapable of such attacks.

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Blobrana


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RE: Ancient life
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The fossilised tracks of a giant marine worm that lived some 475 million years ago have been discovered byt the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).Evidence of the worm, which was up to 3 feet in length, was found in the Cabaneros National Park in central Spain.  The region was once a seabed during the Lower Ordovician period, the Spanish researchers said. The CSIC said the worms dwelled within horizontal galleries 15 feet long and 6-8 inches in diameter under the seabed. 

"[The fossilised galleries were the] oldest tracks of giant worms [ever discovered, and were surrounded] with mucous secretions to harden them and prevent their collapse, which has facilitated their preservation" -  palaeontologist Juan Carlos Gutierrez Marco. 

The tracks also pre-date those discovered in Devon, England, earlier this year, which were dated from 200 million years ago. He explained how the worms could grow to such a large size.

"For more than 450 millions years ago our country was part of a marine platform of an ancient continent called Gondwana. The Iberian Peninsula was then near the south pole of the era" - Gutierrez Marcos.

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Blobrana


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Stromatolites
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Caltech, JPL Scientists Say that Microbial Mats Built 3.4-Billion-Year-Old Stromatolites
Stromatolites are dome- or column-like sedimentary rock structures that are formed in shallow water, layer by layer, over long periods of geologic time. Now, researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have provided evidence that some of the most ancient stromatolites on our planet were built with the help of communities of equally ancient microorganisms, a finding that "adds unexpected depth to our understanding of the earliest record of life on Earth," notes JPL astrobiologist Abigail Allwood, a visitor in geology at Caltech.
Their research, published in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), might also provide a new avenue for exploration in the search for signs of life on Mars.

"Stromatolites grow by accreting sediment in shallow water. They get moulded into these wave forms and, over time, the waves turn into discrete columns that propagate upward, like little knobs sticking up" - John Grotzinger, the Fletcher Jones Professor of Geology at Caltech.

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Blobrana


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RE: Ancient life
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An asteroid bombardment of Earth nearly 4 billion years ago may have actually been a boon to early life on the planet, instead of wiping it out or preventing it from originating, a new study suggests.

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Blobrana


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Many scientists had thought the violent pelting by massive asteroids during the period known as the Late Heavy Bombardment would have melted the Earth's crust and vaporised any life on the planet.
But new three-dimensional computer models developed by a team at the University of Colorado at Boulder shows much of Earth's crust, and the microbes living on it, could have survived and may even have thrived.

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Blobrana


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Burgess Shale
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In July, the Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation (BSGF), a not-for-profit Canadian organisation focused on geoscience education and public outreach, kicks off the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the Burgess Shale, a formation containing a unique fossil assemblage of diverse, soft-bodied life forms that developed during the evolutionary "big-bang" called the Cambrian Explosion.

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Blobrana


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RE: Ancient life
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Origins of Life on Earth



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Blobrana


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It was the first underground movement in our planet's history: Primitive bacteria that lived 2.75 billion years ago built themselves caves to live in, according to a new study. Today, the traces they left behind are stoking hopes that similar life forms could exist on Mars.
Early Earth was a rough place to live - there was no oxygen in the atmosphere, or ozone layer to protect the surface from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Most life at the time protected itself by living in the oceans, or excreting thin films of material that acted as biological shields.
The earliest evidence of subterranean life was 1.5 billion years ago, until now. Birger Rasmussen of Curtin University of Technology in Bentley, Australia, and a team of researchers have found what they believe is evidence that bacteria nearly twice as old lived on the roofs of tiny hollows in lake and river sediments.

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Blobrana


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Posts: 131433
Date:
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It was the first underground movement in our planet's history: Primitive bacteria that lived 2.75 billion years ago built themselves caves to live in, according to a new study.
Early Earth was a rough place to live -- there was no oxygen in the atmosphere, or ozone layer to protect the surface from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Most life at the time protected itself by living in the oceans, or excreting thin films of material that acted as biological shields.
The earliest evidence of subterranean life was 1.5 billion years ago, until now. Birger Rasmussen of Curtin University of Technology in Bentley, Australia, and a team of researchers have found what they believe is evidence that bacteria nearly twice as old lived on the roofs of tiny hollows in lake and river sediments.

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Blobrana


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Prehistoric bacteria holds clues to climate change
Researchers have stumbled on some of the oldest examples of prehistoric bacteria in Australia that may hold early clues to climate change.
Deakin University palaeontologists Guang Shi and Elizabeth A. Weldon were part of an international team that found the 268 million-year-old bacteria on the coastline near Wollongong.
Shi said the team, which included scientists from China, accidentally came across the fossilised bacteria while on the hunt for other fossils.

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