Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology => Topic started by: neilep on 13/01/2008 20:45:30
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Dear Oldologists,
What's the difference between this fossil ,
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and wifeys Meat loaf ?
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Ewe can taste the fossil and the meatloaf is harder !!..LOL...
Erhhmmm....anyway....
What is the oldest fossil so far ?
ewe see..I just don't know ....no really..I don't !!
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Oldologists? Oldologists?
Watch you manners, young man, or there will be a visit to the wood shed between you and I, accompanied but my razor strop. NO BACK TALK!
The Question At Hand:
They are the mounds made by what is formerly known as blue-green algae, now Cynobacteria - at least their modern equivalents are made by these. These are fossils are stromatolites. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatolettia for pictures. The oldest are at least 3.5 billion years old. But oxygen availability is a problem according to some geologists. So stromatolites may have been made by organisms that used a different metabolic process. There are also fossil structures older than this that are arguably bacteria, singled celled remnants of something.
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Oldologists? Oldologists?
Watch you manners, young man, or there will be a visit to the wood shed between you and I, accompanied but my razor strop. NO BACK TALK!
The Question At Hand:
They are the mounds made by what is formerly known as blue-green algae, now Cynobacteria - at least their modern equivalents are made by these. These are fossils are stromatolites. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatolettia for pictures. The oldest are at least 3.5 billion years old. But oxygen availability is a problem according to some geologists. So stromatolites may have been made by organisms that used a different metabolic process. There are also fossil structures older than this that are arguably bacteria, singled celled remnants of something.
I believe there is a famous site where these are very prominent somewhere in the USA i believe... i can't remember where it was now.
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It looked like a snail fossil and the remnants of a cow in the second so I would say the snail fossil is older if it was a snail? LOL!
Very cool though..
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I believe there is a famous site where these are very prominent somewhere in the USA i believe... i can't remember where it was now.
Texas? Jims back yard...perhaps.
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Exodus, perhaps you are thinking of the great formation of stomatalites in Glacier National Park. These are world famous.But more important to the world are the vast amounts of stomatolite-produced banded iron ore in Wisconsin, Michigan and southern Canada that form one of the largest deposits of iron anywhere on earth. These banded iron deposits were formed in the Archean as a result of binding in the blanket-type of stomatalite. These can be found in all the cratonic regions of the world but the US-Canada deposits are the most widespread and prolific in the world.
And there are stomatalite in my back yard - in the Llano uplift - a part of the pre-Cambrian craton, there are a few of them. On private land they are hard to get permission to view but they are there. They are about 65 miles from where I live. In Texas, that is the back yard.
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Exodus, perhaps you are thinking of the great formation of stomatalites in Glacier National Park. These are world famous.But more important to the world are the vast amounts of stomatolite-produced banded iron ore in Wisconsin, Michigan and southern Canada that form one of the largest deposits of iron anywhere on earth. These banded iron deposits were formed in the Archean as a result of binding in the blanket-type of stomatalite. These can be found in all the cratonic regions of the world but the US-Canada deposits are the most widespread and prolific in the world.
And there are stomatalite in my back yard - in the Llano uplift - a part of the pre-Cambrian craton, there are a few of them. On private land they are hard to get permission to view but they are there. They are about 65 miles from where I live. In Texas, that is the back yard.
I'd forgotten about the banded ore! cheers. I've seen some stromatolite formations in Wales on the Pembroke coast... AND real life ones: Shark Bay in Australia. :-)
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Apparently you haven't seen my wife's fruitcakes. I swear they've survived since at least the archean!
But more important to the world are the vast amounts of stomatolite-produced banded iron ore in Wisconsin, Michigan and southern Canada that form one of the largest deposits of iron anywhere on earth. These banded iron deposits were formed in the Archean as a result of binding in the blanket-type of stomatalite.
I think the jury is still out on the biogenic origin of BIF (banded-iron formation). The association of BIF with stromatolites may be more coincidental than cause and effect. Stromatolites were the only living organsims that left fossils during the formation of BIF's when the world's atmosphere finally began accummulating oxygen. However, stromatolites were relatively shallow water organsisms- BIF's are primarily deep water deposits, though some iron deposits did extend into shallower depths. More likely that BIF's were deposited due to oversaturation of iron in the ocean, along with changes and mixing along redox boundaries (oxidizing and reducing) in ocean waters.
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The oldest fossil? Possibly me or JimBob
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That is right we did play in the tidal pools with God when kids - we just didn't see you much. God just couldn't bear to leave Texas. often and he was rather put off by the overcast in ye olde England.
(see remarks on land-sea ratio in Environment)
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It's not that he couldn't bear to leave. He ate a TexMex and was glued to the lavatory! [:D]
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That, too.
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That's meatloaf? I thought it was that fruitcake that has been circling the globe since the first Christmas ! ;)