The Cambrian Explosion, part 4: Oxygen and hard parts
After the Ediacaran and the small shellies; in the Cambrian, oxygen in the sea finally reached a level where gilled animals could breathe efficiently and grow big. This oxygen was […]
Category Archives: Fossils, dinosaurs, evolution
The Cambrian Explosion, part 3: Small shellies and small skeletons
The first 20-million years of the Cambrian appears to be an empty void between the Ediacarans from the previous post and the well known Cambrians. But pull out the looking […]
The Cambrian Explosion, part 2: The softies of Ediacara
For a long time, geologists logically set the dawn of the Cambrian at the first fossils, at the trilobites and their friends, which we met in the first post. But […]
The Cambrian Explosion, part 1: The burghers of Burgess
Burgher: A privileged city citizen in medieval Europe. And now, for something completely different. (Monty Python) First, there was no life. There were layers of sediment rock; sandstone, shale, limestone, […]
Ediacarans: The fossils that should not be there
The Ediacara Hills is a hot, dry area in the middle of nowhere in South Australia. A place people go if they must, like for mining for uranium and other […]
Easter eggs: Hunting sea urchins at Sangstrup Klint, Denmark
I am a Norwegian, and I confess to not have gone to the mountains this Easter. This might get me expelled from community of True Norwegians, but me and the […]
Faxe Chalk Quarry: An ancient coral reef in Denmark
Sixty-five million years ago, a meteorite killed the dinosaurs, and two-thirds of the known species with them. It turned Earth into a wasteland. But Earth soon recovered, mammals took over […]
Where the dinosaurs died: The white cliffs of Stevns Klint in Denmark
When God had finished His creation of the Earth, He discovered that He had made a slight miscalculation. He had some sediments in spare. After considering a new moon just […]
How life makes life on Earth possible
Without life, the Earth would not be a place suitable for life. Sounds like a Catch-22? You bet. But it is true. In this blog post, we will explore how […]
How to get life onto land in 3 difficult steps
Why did the fish go on land? Because it is evolution’s nature (to fill ecological niches. That’s why lobe-finned fish went on land around 370 million years ago and became […]