Latest Evolutionary history of life Stories

UC Riverside-led study tracked biogeochemical signatures preserved in ancient sedimentary rocks to establish nature and timing of oxygenation of Earth's atmosphereA deficiency of oxygen and the heavy metal molybdenum in the ancient deep ocean may have delayed the evolution of animal life on Earth by nearly two billion years, a study led by UC Riverside biogeochemists has found. The researchers arrived at their result by tracking molybdenum in black shales, which are a kind of sedimentary rock...

BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Scientists have known for some time that most major groups of complex animals appeared in the fossils record during the Cambrian Explosion, a seemingly rapid evolutionary event that occurred 542 million years ago. Now Virginia Tech paleontologists, using rigorous analytical methods, have identified another explosive evolutionary event that occurred about 33 million years earlier among macroscopic life forms unrelated to the Cambrian animals.They dubbed this earlier event...

The sudden appearance of large animal fossils more than 500 million years ago "“ a problem that perplexed even Charles Darwin and is commonly known as "Darwin's Dilemma" "“ may be due to a huge increase of oxygen in the world's oceans, says Queen's paleontologist Guy Narbonne, an expert in the early evolution of animals and their ecosystems. In 2002, Dr. Narbonne and his research team found the world's oldest complex life forms between layers of sandstone on the southeastern coast of...