Biology’s big bang had a long fuse: Animals started evolving long before showing up as fossils

Biology’s big bang had a long fuse: Animals started evolving long before showing up as fossils

A new effort to date the early history of modern animals finds a lot of evolutionary dawdling.

The last common ancestor of all living animals probably arose nearly 800 million years ago, a multidisciplinary research team reports in the Nov. 25Science. From that common ancestry, various animal lineages diverged and evolved on their own paths. Yet the major animal groups living today didn’t arise until roughly 200 million years later, in an exuberant burst of forms preserved in fossils during what’s called the Cambrian explosion.

Indian Ocean cocktail party leaves trail of party hats behind

Indian Ocean cocktail party leaves trail of party hats behind

 Scientists have unexpectedly found traces of the supercontinent Gondwana in the Indian Ocean - in the process solving a mystery behind a large group of ocean 'mountains' known as seamounts, including Christmas Island.

Life's diversity snowballed when Earth froze

Life's diversity snowballed when Earth froze

Ancient animals may have started their drive toward explosive diversity back when the Earth was a giant snowball, new research suggests. A startling expansion in the diversity of life forms began about 540 million years ago, early in the Cambrian period. During this apparently sudden outburst, known as the Cambrian explosion, all the major groups of animals seemed to materialize rapidly. Scientists have debated the causes of this great flowering of life for centuries.

A Rare Isotope Helps Track an Ancient Water Source

A Rare Isotope Helps Track an Ancient Water Source

The Nubian Aquifer, the font of fabled oases in Egypt and Libya, stretches languidly across 770,000 square miles of northern Africa, a pointillist collection of underground pools of water migrating, ever so slowly, through rock and sand toward the Mediterranean Sea.

Exploring water in the deep Earth

Exploring water in the deep Earth

Research published today in Nature Geoscience provides new insight into the water cycle of the deep Earth, volcanic activity in the Pacific and the potential catastrophic effects when these two combine.

Earth's 'Time Capsules' May Be Flawed

Earth's 'Time Capsules' May Be Flawed

Found in rocks throughout Earth's crust, zircons are some of the oldest bits of mineral on Earth. These tiny crystals are so durable—and some are so ancient, dating to just 150 million years or so after our world formed—that geologists have long viewed the tiny bits of minerals embedded within them as a kind of time capsule, offering a peek at conditions on the early Earth. But a new study suggests that these so-called inclusions are not as pristine as scientists thought, raising doubts about conclusions that researchers have drawn from them, from the rise of early oceans to the movements of the ancient continents.

X-ray facility to study conditions at Earth's core

Link: X-ray facility to study conditions at Earth's core

An experiment to recreate the extreme conditions of the centre of the Earth was officially opened on Thursday.

The ID24 beam line at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) will use X-ray beams to subject iron and other materials to extraordinary temperatures and pressures.

Irish coast mystery: How did those boulders get up there? Research team now finds storms, not tsunamis, tossed massive rocks inland

Link: Irish coast mystery: How did those boulders get up there? Research team now finds storms, not tsunamis, tossed massive rocks inland

On a trio of tiny islands off Ireland’s western coast, there is a mystery afoot. Something has picked up massive boulders and set them down inland, on a flat, wind-lashed landscape encircled by craggy cliffs that rise from the Atlantic Ocean.

Super Cool Interactive Earth Evolution Timeline

Link: Super Cool Interactive Earth Evolution Timeline

well, this is pretty darn neat. and aesthetically pleasing too. (thanks, ally).