Darwin's Dilemma Of 1859 Gets A Solution, Say Paleobiologists [Science]

Scientific Blogging ^ | January 10, 2009 | News Staff

[Coyoteman]

A solution to the puzzle which came to be known as ‘Darwin’s Dilemma’ has been uncovered by scientists at the University of Oxford in a paper published in the Journal of the Geological Society.

‘To the question of why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these…periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer’, Charles Darwin wrote in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life in 1859, summarizing what came to be known as ‘Darwin’s Dilemma’ – the lack of fossils in sediment from the Precambrian (c. 4500 – 542 Mya).

The puzzle was that if Darwin’s theory of natural selection was right, life evolved gradually over millions of years but the Cambrian period, which began around 542 million years ago, seemed to herald a sudden rapid increase in species diversity, an event which has come to be known as the ‘Cambrian explosion.'

Darwin struggled to find evidence for fossils prior to the Cambrian, and the mystery continued to perplex palaeontologists. ...

Darwin himself was confident that fossils from the Precambrian would eventually be found, believing it to be a time when ‘the world swarmed with living creatures’. Although the potential importance of the Longmyndian Supergroup in solving Darwin’s dilemma has been recognized since Salter’s pioneering discoveries, it is only now, with more sophisticated techniques for examining specimens, that the secrets of the Longmyndian rocks and their exceptionally preserved fossils can be uncovered.

Article: 'A solution to Darwin's dilemma of 1859: exceptional preservation in Salter's material from the late Ediacaran Longmyndian Supergroup, England', Richard H. T. Callow and Martin D. Brasier, Journal of the Geological Society, Vol. 166, 2009, pp 1-4

[muawiyah]

Just like someone dumping his aquarium full of Atlantic basin creepy crawlies into a pristine, formerly iced over (pre-GW) lake in British Columbia.

All at once you got "some stuff".

This is all still crying out of an explanation ~

[DoctorMichael]

Sorry, no more Cambrian explosion.

Good stuff! Thanks for posting!

[count-your-change]

Sorry, no more Coyoteman. I can name six or seven phylum (basic families) that first appeared during the Cambrian.

Darwin's Dilemma is how to figure out a way to make the Cambrian record disappear.

[SunkenCiv]

This topic was posted 1/11/2009. Thanks Coyoteman.

[LouieFisk]

“it would be more appropriate if you posted scientific backing for any claims you make.”
—
Howz about - “for as long this universe of ours has been around one critter has never turned itself into some other critter”. In other news, pumpkins don’t really change into chariots, either.

[wattojawa]

Nore will a tornado blowing through a junkyard assemble a 747.

[LouieFisk]

I didn’t realize I had responded to a decade old post until after the fact, heh! It was at the top, so I went for it.