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72-743: Precise dating of vertebrate fossil sites in Australia is rare, and many Cenozoic-age sediments remain undated. As of 2000, only two Pliocene vertebrate-bearing fossil faunas were specifically dated, Bluff Downs Local Fauna and the Hamilton Local Fauna in Victoria. Unusually, the Bluff Downs Local Fauna have been specifically dated. This is because there is a minimum age control in the form of a basalt layer (the Bluff Downs Flow) directly overlies

144-467: A constant rate. These " molecular clocks ", however, are fallible, and provide only approximate timing: for example, they are not sufficiently precise and reliable for estimating when the groups that feature in the Cambrian explosion first evolved, and estimates produced by different techniques may vary by a factor of two. Organisms are only rarely preserved as fossils in the best of circumstances, and only

216-624: A diverse range of vertebrates dating to the Pliocene , found in the terrigenous sediments of the Allingham Formation. These include both broken and complete bones and skulls, though articulated skeletons (with the bones in the same position as upon the organism's death) are rare, and most organisms are found as isolated floats. Fossils were first discovered, collected and reported to the Queensland Museum in 1973. The Bluff Downs Local Fauna

288-426: A fraction of such fossils have been discovered. This is illustrated by the fact that the number of species known through the fossil record is less than 5% of the number of known living species, suggesting that the number of species known through fossils must be far less than 1% of all the species that have ever lived. Because of the specialized and rare circumstances required for a biological structure to fossilize, only

360-495: A hierarchical classification system still in use today. Darwin and his contemporaries first linked the hierarchical structure of the tree of life with the then very sparse fossil record. Darwin eloquently described a process of descent with modification, or evolution, whereby organisms either adapt to natural and changing environmental pressures, or they perish. When Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or

432-418: A mid-Ordovician age. Such index fossils must be distinctive, be globally distributed and occupy a short time range to be useful. Misleading results are produced if the index fossils are incorrectly dated. Stratigraphy and biostratigraphy can in general provide only relative dating ( A was before B ), which is often sufficient for studying evolution. However, this is difficult for some time periods, because of

504-526: A mutation first appeared. Phylogenetics and paleontology work together in the clarification of science's still dim view of the appearance of life and its evolution. Niles Eldredge 's study of the Phacops trilobite genus supported the hypothesis that modifications to the arrangement of the trilobite's eye lenses proceeded by fits and starts over millions of years during the Devonian . Eldredge's interpretation of

576-570: A portion of the deceased organism, usually that portion that was partially mineralized during life, such as the bones and teeth of vertebrates , or the chitinous or calcareous exoskeletons of invertebrates . Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as animal tracks or feces ( coprolites ). These types of fossil are called trace fossils or ichnofossils , as opposed to body fossils . Some fossils are biochemical and are called chemofossils or biosignatures . Gathering fossils dates at least to

648-400: A richly diverse assembly of early multicellular eukaryotes . The fossil record and faunal succession form the basis of the science of biostratigraphy or determining the age of rocks based on embedded fossils. For the first 150 years of geology , biostratigraphy and superposition were the only means for determining the relative age of rocks. The geologic time scale was developed based on

720-405: A significant amount of the salt in today's oceans. Over time rivers continue to carry minerals to the ocean but when water evaporates, it leaves the minerals behind. Since chlorine and sodium are not consumed by biological processes, these two elements constitute the greatest portion of dissolved minerals. Some 1.35 billion tons, or 8% of global river-borne sediment (16.5-17 billion tons globally),

792-448: A small percentage of life-forms can be expected to be represented in discoveries, and each discovery represents only a snapshot of the process of evolution. The transition itself can only be illustrated and corroborated by transitional fossils, which will never demonstrate an exact half-way point. The fossil record is strongly biased toward organisms with hard-parts, leaving most groups of soft-bodied organisms with little to no role. It

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864-456: A wide range of marsupials from families that are still alive today (extant) as well as extinct families, and is typical of Australian Pliocene-era faunas. Several large reptilian predators, such as crocodiles and a giant varanid (monitor lizard), have been found, which has long puzzled palaeontologists as no large predatory terrestrial mammals have been found at the site. Below is a table of the taxa that were identified by Archer in 1976 and formed

936-449: Is a notable example of how knowledge encoded by the fossil record continues to contribute otherwise unattainable information on the emergence and development of life on Earth. For example, the research suggests Markuelia has closest affinity to priapulid worms, and is adjacent to the evolutionary branching of Priapulida , Nematoda and Arthropoda . Despite significant advances in uncovering and identifying paleontological specimens, it

1008-412: Is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age . Examples include bones , shells , exoskeletons , stone imprints of animals or microbes , objects preserved in amber , hair , petrified wood and DNA remnants. The totality of fossils is known as the fossil record . Though the fossil record is incomplete, numerous studies have demonstrated that there

1080-500: Is dated to 3.62 ± 0.5 million years ago. Its position directly above the fossiliferous sediment helped to protect the fossils from erosion, thus ensuring their survival. The Allingham Formation, named by Archer and Wade in 1976, is a lake and stream deposit within the Nulla Basalt Province, containing the fossils which the Bluff Downs Local Fauna are attributed to. It consists of a mixture of sediment that originated on land and

1152-590: Is derived from the vertebrate species found in the Allingham Formation. The Bluff Downs Local Fauna, named and described by Archer in 1976, includes numerous vertebrate species found at the Bluff Downs Fossil Site, many of which are similar to but slightly older than the Chinchilla fauna (associated with Chinchilla Fossil Site, also in Queensland), according to more ancestral physical features. This assemblage

1224-538: Is enough information available to give a good understanding of the pattern of diversification of life on Earth. In addition, the record can predict and fill gaps such as the discovery of Tiktaalik in the arctic of Canada . Paleontology includes the study of fossils: their age, method of formation, and evolutionary significance. Specimens are usually considered to be fossils if they are over 10,000 years old. The oldest fossils are around 3.48 billion years to 4.1 billion years old. The observation in

1296-479: Is generally accepted that the fossil record is vastly incomplete. Approaches for measuring the completeness of the fossil record have been developed for numerous subsets of species, including those grouped taxonomically, temporally, environmentally/geographically, or in sum. This encompasses the subfield of taphonomy and the study of biases in the paleontological record. Paleontology seeks to map out how life evolved across geologic time. A substantial hurdle

1368-409: Is located within the Nulla Basalt Province. The Nulla Basalt Province covers approximately 4200 square kilometres and is dated to the late Pliocene or early Pleistocene and consists of multiple olivine basalt flows as the result of lava flows associated with volcanic activity 4.5-4.0, 2.3, 1.3 and 1.1 million years ago, according to radiogenic argon determination dating. The dating of these flows matches

1440-438: Is replete with the mollusks , the vertebrates , the echinoderms , the brachiopods and some groups of arthropods . Fossil sites with exceptional preservation—sometimes including preserved soft tissues—are known as Lagerstätten —German for "storage places". These formations may have resulted from carcass burial in an anoxic environment with minimal bacteria, thus slowing decomposition. Lagerstätten span geological time from

1512-470: Is the difficulty of working out fossil ages. Beds that preserve fossils typically lack the radioactive elements needed for radiometric dating . This technique is our only means of giving rocks greater than about 50 million years old an absolute age, and can be accurate to within 0.5% or better. Although radiometric dating requires careful laboratory work, its basic principle is simple: the rates at which various radioactive elements decay are known, and so

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1584-413: Is the science of deciphering the "layer-cake" that is the sedimentary record. Rocks normally form relatively horizontal layers, with each layer younger than the one underneath it. If a fossil is found between two layers whose ages are known, the fossil's age is claimed to lie between the two known ages. Because rock sequences are not continuous, but may be broken up by faults or periods of erosion , it

1656-595: Is transported by Ganges - Brahmaputra river system annually according to decades old studies , it is unquantified how much variance year to year as well as the impact modern humans have on this amount by holding back sediment in dams, counteracted with increased development of erosion patterns. Wind born sediment also transports billions of tons annually, most prominent in Saharan dust , but thought to be substantially less than rivers; again, variance of year to year and human impacts of land use remain unquantified on this data. It

1728-459: Is very difficult to match up rock beds that are not directly adjacent. However, fossils of species that survived for a relatively short time can be used to match isolated rocks: this technique is called biostratigraphy . For instance, the conodont Eoplacognathus pseudoplanus has a short range in the Middle Ordovician period. If rocks of unknown age have traces of E. pseudoplanus , they have

1800-757: The Cambrian period to the present . Worldwide, some of the best examples of near-perfect fossilization are the Cambrian Maotianshan Shales and Burgess Shale , the Devonian Hunsrück Slates , the Jurassic Solnhofen Limestone , and the Carboniferous Mazon Creek localities. A fossil is said to be recrystallized when the original skeletal compounds are still present but in a different crystal form, such as from aragonite to calcite . Replacement occurs when

1872-581: The Phacops fossil record was that the aftermaths of the lens changes, but not the rapidly occurring evolutionary process, were fossilized. This and other data led Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge to publish their seminal paper on punctuated equilibrium in 1971. Synchrotron X-ray tomographic analysis of early Cambrian bilaterian embryonic microfossils yielded new insights of metazoan evolution at its earliest stages. The tomography technique provides previously unattainable three-dimensional resolution at

1944-559: The Renaissance . Leonardo da Vinci concurred with Aristotle's view that fossils were the remains of ancient life. For example, Leonardo noticed discrepancies with the biblical flood narrative as an explanation for fossil origins: If the Deluge had carried the shells for distances of three and four hundred miles from the sea it would have carried them mixed with various other natural objects all heaped up together; but even at such distances from

2016-591: The Song dynasty during the 11th century, who kept a specific seashell fossil with his own poem engraved on it. In his Dream Pool Essays published in 1088, Song dynasty Chinese scholar-official Shen Kuo hypothesized that marine fossils found in a geological stratum of mountains located hundreds of miles from the Pacific Ocean was evidence that a prehistoric seashore had once existed there and shifted over centuries of time . His observation of petrified bamboos in

2088-402: The law of superposition ) preserved different assemblages of fossils, and that these assemblages succeeded one another in a regular and determinable order. He observed that rocks from distant locations could be correlated based on the fossils they contained. He termed this the principle of faunal succession . This principle became one of Darwin's chief pieces of evidence that biological evolution

2160-444: The palaeoenvironment at the time of deposition . There were several different depositional events and analysis of the sediments suggests that during the early Pliocene, a stream widened to form a shallow lake. The formation could be as young as 4.0 to 3.6 million years old, with the fossils were likely deposited at the lower end of the period between 5.2 and 3.6 million years ago. The fossils found at Bluff Downs fossil site consist of

2232-403: The thunderbird . There is no such direct mythological connection known from prehistoric Africa, but there is considerable evidence of tribes there excavating and moving fossils to ceremonial sites, apparently treating them with some reverence. In Japan, fossil shark teeth were associated with the mythical tengu , thought to be the razor-sharp claws of the creature, documented some time after

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2304-449: The 16th century. Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote of " tongue stones ", which he called glossopetra . These were fossil shark teeth, thought by some classical cultures to look like the tongues of people or snakes. He also wrote about the horns of Ammon , which are fossil ammonites , whence the group of shelled octopus-cousins ultimately draws its modern name. Pliny also makes one of

2376-739: The 19th century that certain fossils were associated with certain rock strata led to the recognition of a geological timescale and the relative ages of different fossils. The development of radiometric dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed scientists to quantitatively measure the absolute ages of rocks and the fossils they host. There are many processes that lead to fossilization , including permineralization , casts and molds, authigenic mineralization , replacement and recrystallization, adpression, carbonization , and bioimmuration. Fossils vary in size from one- micrometre (1 μm) bacteria to dinosaurs and trees, many meters long and weighing many tons. A fossil normally preserves only

2448-413: The 8th century AD. In medieval China, the fossil bones of ancient mammals including Homo erectus were often mistaken for " dragon bones" and used as medicine and aphrodisiacs . In addition, some of these fossil bones are collected as "art" by scholars, who left scripts on various artifacts, indicating the time they were added to a collection. One good example is the famous scholar Huang Tingjian of

2520-478: The Bluff Downs Local Fauna at that time. Various species within this table have since been confirmed and additional finds of fossils have led to greater biodiversity identified at the site. Other taxa of note include; The palaeoenvironment of Bluff Downs during the Pliocene featured large water bodies and riparian forests. This is inferred from the presence of certain species which have specialised habitats, as well as

2592-523: The McBride, Chudleigh, Sturgeon and Nulla Basalt provinces. This basalt is present due to volcanic activity from at least four separate periods, the most recent of which was approximately 13, 000 years ago, based on radiocarbon dating of sediment under the youngest of the flows, the Toomba flow. There was significant volcanic activity in the region 4.5-4.0, 2.3, 1.3 and 1.1 million years ago. Four million years ago,

2664-528: The Nulla Province, and responsible for the deposition of the Allingham Formation and thus, the presence of fossils, as it obliterated a channel , damming and causing drainage of the ancestral Burdekin River at the time of deposition. The flow is associated with the eruption that occurred between 4.5 and 4.0 million years ago. The Bluff Downs Flow is a basalt flow that directly overlies the Allingham Formation, and

2736-597: The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life , the oldest animal fossils were those from the Cambrian Period, now known to be about 540 million years old. He worried about the absence of older fossils because of the implications on the validity of his theories, but he expressed hope that such fossils would be found, noting that: "only a small portion of the world is known with accuracy." Darwin also pondered

2808-555: The Proterozoic and deeper still in the Archean is only "recounted by microscopic fossils and subtle chemical signals." Molecular biologists, using phylogenetics , can compare protein amino acid or nucleotide sequence homology (i.e., similarity) to evaluate taxonomy and evolutionary distances among organisms, with limited statistical confidence. The study of fossils, on the other hand, can more specifically pinpoint when and in what organism

2880-413: The beach, indicating the fossils were once living animals. He had previously explained them in terms of vaporous exhalations , which Persian polymath Avicenna modified into the theory of petrifying fluids ( succus lapidificatus ). Recognition of fossil seashells as originating in the sea was built upon in the 14th century by Albert of Saxony , and accepted in some form by most naturalists by

2952-710: The beginning of recorded history. The fossils themselves are referred to as the fossil record. The fossil record was one of the early sources of data underlying the study of evolution and continues to be relevant to the history of life on Earth . Paleontologists examine the fossil record to understand the process of evolution and the way particular species have evolved. Fossils have been visible and common throughout most of natural history, and so documented human interaction with them goes back as far as recorded history, or earlier. There are many examples of paleolithic stone knives in Europe, with fossil echinoderms set precisely at

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3024-660: The deity Sopdu , the Morning Star, equivalent of Venus in Roman mythology. Fossils appear to have directly contributed to the mythology of many civilizations, including the ancient Greeks. Classical Greek historian Herodotos wrote of an area near Hyperborea where gryphons protected golden treasure. There was indeed gold mining in that approximate region , where beaked Protoceratops skulls were common as fossils. A later Greek scholar, Aristotle , eventually realized that fossil seashells from rocks were similar to those found on

3096-466: The dry northern climate zone of what is now Yan'an , Shaanxi province, China, led him to advance early ideas of gradual climate change due to bamboo naturally growing in wetter climate areas. In medieval Christendom , fossilized sea creatures on mountainsides were seen as proof of the biblical deluge of Noah's Ark . After observing the existence of seashells in mountains, the ancient Greek philosopher Xenophanes (c. 570 – 478 BC) speculated that

3168-415: The earlier known references to toadstones , thought until the 18th century to be a magical cure for poison originating in the heads of toads, but which are fossil teeth from Lepidotes , a Cretaceous ray-finned fish. The Plains tribes of North America are thought to have similarly associated fossils, such as the many intact pterosaur fossils naturally exposed in the region, with their own mythology of

3240-550: The earliest known stromatolites are over 3.4 billion years old. The fossil record is life's evolutionary epic that unfolded over four billion years as environmental conditions and genetic potential interacted in accordance with natural selection. The Virtual Fossil Museum Paleontology has joined with evolutionary biology to share the interdisciplinary task of outlining the tree of life, which inevitably leads backwards in time to Precambrian microscopic life when cell structure and functions evolved. Earth's deep time in

3312-460: The earth during earthquake and subsidences, and petrifies whatever comes into contact with it. As a matter of fact, the petrifaction of the bodies of plants and animals is not more extraordinary than the transformation of waters. From the 13th century to the present day, scholars pointed out that the fossil skulls of Deinotherium giganteum , found in Crete and Greece, might have been interpreted as being

3384-576: The eastern flank of the Great Dividing Range , and were at the head of this valley. The lavas themselves are relatively thin, at a thickness of 30 metres to the east of Allensleigh but only 4 metres near Bluff Downs Station., this likely being due to the underlying topography . They form large plateaux which were noted by Twidale as peripherally dissected, and of a vesicular amygdaloidal nature with vivianite , zeolites and chalcedonic silica commonly found within amygdales. Bluff Downs Fossil Site

3456-524: The erosion of rocks on land; that is, they are derived from terrestrial (as opposed to marine) environments. Consisting of sand , mud , and silt carried to sea by rivers , their composition is usually related to their source rocks; deposition of these sediments is largely limited to the continental shelf . Sources of terrigenous sediments include volcanoes, weathering of rocks, wind-blown dust, grinding by glaciers, and sediment carried by rivers or icebergs. Terrigenous sediments are responsible for

3528-478: The existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some kind of catastrophe. Interest in fossils, and geology more generally, expanded during the early nineteenth century. In Britain, Mary Anning 's discoveries of fossils, including the first complete ichthyosaur and a complete plesiosaurus skeleton, sparked both public and scholarly interest. Early naturalists well understood the similarities and differences of living species leading Linnaeus to develop

3600-553: The fossiliferous deposit. According to stratigraphy, the fossils must have been deposited before the basalt and thus, since the Bluff Downs Flow has been dated to 3.62 ±0.5 million years old; the fossils were deposited prior to this. The fossils were also deposited directly above another basalt flow, the Allensleigh Flow, allowing a maximum age control. The fossils were likely deposited between 5.2 and 3.6 million years ago during

3672-519: The hand grip, dating back to Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals . These ancient peoples also drilled holes through the center of those round fossil shells, apparently using them as beads for necklaces. The ancient Egyptians gathered fossils of species that resembled the bones of modern species they worshipped. The god Set was associated with the hippopotamus , therefore fossilized bones of hippo-like species were kept in that deity's temples. Five-rayed fossil sea urchin shells were associated with

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3744-407: The landscape of northern Queensland would have been similar to Hawaii , with frequent lava flows , especially since the basalts were related to a central type of eruption not to fissures , and therefore were similar to those which can be observed today at Mauna Loa . The vents which the lavas came from appear to follow existing lineaments following a north-east direction in the valley, which lies on

3816-579: The late Pliocene period, which matches dates estimated through biocorrelation. The Allingham Formation has been radiometrically dated to no less than 4 ±0.12 million years old, placing it in the early Pliocene Bluff Downs fossil site describes a layer of fossiliferous sediment dating to the late Pliocene era that is sandwiched between basalt flows within the Nulla Basalt Province. Late Cenozoic basalts cover more than 28, 000 square kilometres in northern Queensland, and were divided into four physiographic provinces and given relative ages by Twidale in 1956;

3888-535: The limits of fossilization. Fossils of two enigmatic bilaterians, the worm-like Markuelia and a putative, primitive protostome , Pseudooides , provide a peek at germ layer embryonic development. These 543-million-year-old embryos support the emergence of some aspects of arthropod development earlier than previously thought in the late Proterozoic. The preserved embryos from China and Siberia underwent rapid diagenetic phosphatization resulting in exquisite preservation, including cell structures. This research

3960-418: The nature of the sediments within the Allingham Formation. The presence of fluviatile and lacustrine sedimentary deposits as well as presence of certain species such as pygmy geese and darters confirms the presence of extensive permanent water bodies, and short-necked chelids and long-necked tortoises suggest shallow, turbid lagoon were a feature of the prehistoric landscape. There was persistent freshwater in

4032-420: The ordering suggested by analysis of aerial photographs. The flows, which include the Allensleigh Flow and Bluff Downs Flow, overlie uneven Palaeozoic sedimentary , igneous and metamorphic rocks as well as sediments from the early Cenozoic , all of which have been weathered ( lateritised ) due to a humid and tropical palaeoenvironment . The Allensleigh flow is the oldest and most widespread basalt flow in

4104-545: The problems involved in matching rocks of the same age across continents . Family-tree relationships also help to narrow down the date when lineages first appeared. For instance, if fossils of B or C date to X million years ago and the calculated "family tree" says A was an ancestor of B and C, then A must have evolved earlier. It is also possible to estimate how long ago two living clades diverged, in other words approximately how long ago their last common ancestor must have lived, by assuming that DNA mutations accumulate at

4176-443: The ratio of the radioactive element to its decay products shows how long ago the radioactive element was incorporated into the rock. Radioactive elements are common only in rocks with a volcanic origin, and so the only fossil-bearing rocks that can be dated radiometrically are volcanic ash layers, which may provide termini for the intervening sediments. Consequently, palaeontologists rely on stratigraphy to date fossils. Stratigraphy

4248-498: The region as fossils of Chara flora, crustaceans and fish have been found and short-necked chelids also indicate presence of well developed rivers, creeks and lagoons with abundant aquatic fauna. The area experienced a high level of precipitation and humidity , and the palaeoenvironment was similar to present-day Kakadu , and many species are similar across these two locations. Mammals associated with terrestrial and arboreal habitats, such as ringtail possums, indicate that there

4320-462: The relative ages of rock strata as determined by the early paleontologists and stratigraphers . Since the early years of the twentieth century, absolute dating methods, such as radiometric dating (including potassium/argon , argon/argon , uranium series , and, for very recent fossils, radiocarbon dating ) have been used to verify the relative ages obtained by fossils and to provide absolute ages for many fossils. Radiometric dating has shown that

4392-429: The sea and that they were still living when the strait of Gibraltar was cut through. In the mountains of Parma and Piacenza multitudes of shells and corals with holes may be seen still sticking to the rocks.... In 1666, Nicholas Steno examined a shark, and made the association of its teeth with the "tongue stones" of ancient Greco-Roman mythology, concluding that those were not in fact the tongues of venomous snakes, but

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4464-423: The sea we see the oysters all together and also the shellfish and the cuttlefish and all the other shells which congregate together, found all together dead; and the solitary shells are found apart from one another as we see them every day on the sea-shores. And we find oysters together in very large families, among which some may be seen with their shells still joined together, indicating that they were left there by

4536-536: The shell, bone, or other tissue is replaced with another mineral. In some cases mineral replacement of the original shell occurs so gradually and at such fine scales that microstructural features are preserved despite the total loss of original material. Scientists can use such fossils when researching the anatomical structure of ancient species. Several species of saurids have been identified from mineralized dinosaur fossils. Terrigenous sediment In oceanography , terrigenous sediments are those derived from

4608-581: The skulls of the Cyclopes of Greek mythology , and are possibly the origin of that Greek myth. Their skulls appear to have a single eye-hole in the front, just like their modern elephant cousins, though in fact it's actually the opening for their trunk. In Norse mythology , echinoderm shells (the round five-part button left over from a sea urchin) were associated with the god Thor , not only being incorporated in thunderstones , representations of Thor's hammer and subsequent hammer-shaped crosses as Christianity

4680-467: The sudden appearance of many groups (i.e. phyla ) in the oldest known Cambrian fossiliferous strata. Since Darwin's time, the fossil record has been extended to between 2.3 and 3.5 billion years. Most of these Precambrian fossils are microscopic bacteria or microfossils . However, macroscopic fossils are now known from the late Proterozoic. The Ediacara biota (also called Vendian biota) dating from 575 million years ago collectively constitutes

4752-451: The teeth of some long-extinct species of shark. Robert Hooke (1635–1703) included micrographs of fossils in his Micrographia and was among the first to observe fossil forams . His observations on fossils, which he stated to be the petrified remains of creatures some of which no longer existed, were published posthumously in 1705. William Smith (1769–1839) , an English canal engineer, observed that rocks of different ages (based on

4824-511: The world was once inundated in a great flood that buried living creatures in drying mud. In 1027, the Persian Avicenna explained fossils' stoniness in The Book of Healing : If what is said concerning the petrifaction of animals and plants is true, the cause of this (phenomenon) is a powerful mineralizing and petrifying virtue which arises in certain stony spots, or emanates suddenly from

4896-458: Was adopted, but also kept in houses to garner Thor's protection. These grew into the shepherd's crowns of English folklore, used for decoration and as good luck charms, placed by the doorway of homes and churches. In Suffolk , a different species was used as a good-luck charm by bakers, who referred to them as fairy loaves , associating them with the similarly shaped loaves of bread they baked. More scientific views of fossils emerged during

4968-412: Was noted to be considerably biodiverse by Archer, and features many ancestors of the species we now recognise as uniquely Australian, as well as unusual extinct species of megafauna, such as Diprotodonts and Thylacoleonids . The Bluff Downs Local Fauna originally identified by Archer featured 22 taxa with 12 mammals, but this has since been expanded by further discoveries at the site. The fauna includes

5040-408: Was real. Georges Cuvier came to believe that most if not all the animal fossils he examined were remains of extinct species. This led Cuvier to become an active proponent of the geological school of thought called catastrophism . Near the end of his 1796 paper on living and fossil elephants he said: All of these facts, consistent among themselves, and not opposed by any report, seem to me to prove

5112-476: Was some closed forest habitat present. This forest would have been river-based (riparian) rainforest, and formed a minor component of the palaeoenvironment, as the paucity of possum fossils despite the use of screen washing of sediments suggests. 19°41′S 145°33′E  /  19.683°S 145.550°E  / -19.683; 145.550 Fossiliferous A fossil (from Classical Latin fossilis , lit.   ' obtained by digging ' )

5184-452: Was washed away after eroding into nearby waterbodies ( terrigenous sediment), clays, silts, sands (including calcareous sands), and Chara limestones ( calcareous nodules that were deposited directly over the fossiliferous sediment and consequently overlain by basalt). These sediments were formed in lakes and rivers (i.e. are lacustrine and fluviatile ), indicating the presence of various water bodies such as lakes, rivers and streams in

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