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Prior to 2004, paleontologists had found fossils of amphibians with necks, ears, and four legs, in rock no older than 365 million years old. In rocks more than 385 million years old they could only find fish, without these amphibian characteristics. Evolutionary theory predicted that since amphibians evolved from fish, an intermediate form ...
The history of paleontology traces the history of the effort to understand the history of life on Earth by studying the fossil record left behind by living organisms. Since it is concerned with understanding living organisms of the past, paleontology can be considered to be a field of biology, but its historical development has been closely tied to geology and the effort to understand the ...
The simplest definition of "paleontology" is "the study of ancient life". [5] The field seeks information about several aspects of past organisms: "their identity and origin, their environment and evolution, and what they can tell us about the Earth's organic and inorganic past".
Fossils of the algae Grypania have been reported in 1.85 billion-year-old rocks (originally dated to 2.1 Ga but later revised [15]), indicating that eukaryotes with organelles had already evolved. [144] A diverse collection of fossil algae were found in rocks dated between 1.5 and 1.4 Ga. [145] The earliest known fossils of fungi date from 1.43 ...
The earliest evidence of life found in a stratigraphic unit, not just a single mineral grain, is the 3.7 Ga metasedimentary rocks containing graphite from the Isua Supracrustal Belt in Greenland. [3] The earliest direct known life on Earth are stromatolite fossils which have been found in 3.480-billion-year-old geyserite uncovered in the ...
San Pedro High School discovered a deposit of marine fossils on campus in 2022 and began collaborating with local paleontologists to uncover secrets from the Palos Verdes Peninsula's geological past.
Fossil resin (colloquially called amber) is a natural polymer found in many types of strata throughout the world, even the Arctic. The oldest fossil resin dates to the Triassic , though most dates to the Cenozoic .
The fossil has been identified as a new silesaurid, an extinct group of reptiles. Paleontologists debate whether silesaurids were true dinosaurs or possibly a precursor to the creatures that once ...