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New Epoch in History of the Earth

Posted by michael on from the not-taught-in-kansas dept.

exp(pi*sqrt(163)) writes "According to the BBC News, for the first time in over a century geologists have decided to add a new name for a period in the timeline of the planet earth. From now on, the time from 600 million years ago to 542 million years ago is to be known as the Ediacarian Period. Geologists now see this period, just before the first shelled animals appeared, as important enough to deserve recognition in its own right. This will also help to reduce the confusion caused by the myriad of names that have been used for this period up to now."

4 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. Call Burt Gummer by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    El Blanco and his Graboid pals aren't pre-Cambrian, they're now Ediacarian. I wonder if the next iteration of the Tremors franchise will use the proper terminology?

    Probably not- Hollywood seems to hate science as of late.

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  2. Re:Correction to Re:Call Burt Gummer by WhiteBandit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Because many geologic eras/epochs/etc are usually named for type localities. In this case, the type locality for the Ediacaran is the Ediacara Hills.

    According to Wikipedia, the Cambria is the Roman name of Wales, where rocks of Cambrian age exist and were studied.

    But then again, I could be completely wrong since all languages have their nuances. Take for example "Canada/Canadians" ;)

    (Note, I really do love my Canadian friends. It is just a funny page. :)

  3. Gould's Wonderful Life by Latent+Heat · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The big point of "Wonderful Life" is that the Burgess fossils were first shoehorned into existing phyla by Walcott, and that he, S. J. Gould, explained that the Burgess had all kinds of bizarre phyla that don't exist anymore, which means we should count ourselves lucky that we don't have eyes on our butts and spikes sticking out of our foreheads.

    Story I heard was that "Wonderful Life" was dismissed among people in the know as a form of peer-review bypassed grandstanding. A lot of what Gould had to say is controversial. This is not to say that people can't take controversial or off-the-wall theories to the popular press (Wolfram's New Physics), but I had gotten the mistaken impression that "Wonderful Life" represented main-stream thinking on the subject, which it does not.

  4. Hear It, Smell It, Touch It, See It, or Taste It by follower_of_christ · · Score: 0, Interesting
    You can lick a fossil, see a fossil, touch a fossil, hear a fossil if you drop it, and taste a fossil.

    They all look, smell, feel, sound, and taste like...... rocks. But it takes faith to believe they appeared millions of years ago by random chance.