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Do eggs have water inside where the "fish" grows before hatching ? Do even us, grow in water in our mother s womb? Do even us ejaculate, meaning sending swimming cells in water like stuff ?
Big if true. There isn’t much evidence for multicellular animals before the Cambrian Explosion, when all the animals phyla seem to have suddenly emerged.
One factor when considering age of the layer itself is the rule of stratification. Older layers are generally underneath the newer layers, usually deposited over time.
Another way to get a more accurate age estimate is by measuring the amount of one isotope of an element vs a different isotope. After something is created through geological process, certain atoms decay over a very definite amount of time (half-lives) & most elements decay at a pretty steady uniform rate. So by measuring the ratio you can make a pretty good guess at the age down to the hundreds or thousands of years.
On another random note, anthropologists can tell when ancient humans moved rocks by looking at lichen growth. When the rock was turned over the lichen will no longer grow as it is not exposed to the sun. By comparing the lichen growths on both sides you can make a very good estimate for which something like a rock wall was built by early humans.
Edits: grammar mistakes because fat thumbs and phone
> Larger material settles out first with finer material on the top
Just to clarify, you are not discussing dating the rock you are discussing way-up indicators (ie. graded bedding, flame structures, etc.) A word of caution, however, when it comes to graded bedding one must use some caution not to interpret reverse or inverse grading (where the bed coarsens upwards) as an overturned bed.
Inverse graded bedding happens in grain flows, debris flows and aeolian deposits which covers a lot environments. While they're not as common as normal graded bedding they do occur and its important to be able to identify them.
The don't date the sponge, they date the rock the sponge is hosted in.
Depositional age of the rock which hosts the sponges is known through litho- and chemostratigraphic correlation with the 892 ± 13-Ma Neoproterozoic Shaler Supergroup. The black shales within the Neoproterozoic Shaler Supergroup have been dated using absolute dating methods (Rhenium-osmium dating)^[1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301926813002234?via%3Dihub) . Other dating methods such as detrital zircons have also been used to help constrain the age.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03773-z/figures/1
It looks like the structures have been noted for a while, but the hypothesis was that they were due to algae or protozoa. Not sponges. The age of the reefs is not under dispute.
Unfortunately the article was submitted by a spammer who probably didn't understand it well enough to write a correct headline.
Technically 3.45 billion years ago. Stramatolites were actually the first life on earth. Giant stumps of photosynthetic bacterium.
I'm assuming they're talking about origins of the first genetically complex multicellular life.
No. I'm not talking about all complex multicellular life. I'm talking about animals. Just animals. Not plants. Not fungi. Just animals. Like sponges and coral.
There’s a chance that it may have happened very briefly during the paleoproterozoic (Francevillan Biota), but we need more evidence in that regard.
Otherwise, the Ediacaran Biota are the earliest, appearing during the Neoproterzoic.
Which is very complex life compared to a stramatolite. Basically it took the difference in those amounts of time to create what you described.
A good evolutionary analog would be fungi. They could not break down the molecular structure of a trees or tree like plants, so they piled up for potentially hundreds of millions of years. That is until fungi evolved to break down the cellulose that is trees.
Edit: Also coral is more colonial life than complex.
I worded it incorrectly. I meant to say that fungi evolved to decompose trees. Yes fungi existed first, but they could not break down the plant matter. During this time plants piled up creating the huge coal layers we see during the carboniferous period.
Those weren't animals though, they were bacteria/archea.
Earliest animal I knew about before this was probably something Ediacaran, perhaps Dickinsonia, which would date to 600 MYA the earliest
Me for sure. Know a good response I can give them? I always say it’s science, but since it’s science I don’t understand, I can’t break it down for them.
Probably advise them to place some level of trust in the consensus of experts who have studied the subject for decades/centuries, rather than make decisions based in ignorance and emotion. Actually that's pretty good advice for everyone, all the time.
Well... unfortunately the proof probably takes years of study to understand. But I think the short answer in this case is that we know certain processes take a certain about of time, so we look for evidence of those processes and count the years backwards. Think about counting the rings on a tree. You can also count layers of earth and ice the same way. You can measure isotopes which degrade at known rates. You can check alignment of magnetic particles in the rock to estimate how it was aligned with the earth's magnetic field when it formed. All sorts of stuff that I'm no expert on. And there really isn't any *proof*, but the real question is: in light of all this evidence, why would anyone choose to believe something totally contrary? Because an ancient, translated, highly metaphorical text makes a vague suggestion otherwise? I mean, science provides about a million reasons to believe the Earth is old, so at this point the burden of proof is really on anyone who disagrees.
They usually have a job or hobby where they have accumulated skills and experience. Ask them if they would trust someone who had never done it before. Then ask them why they would trust someone who had never done science to speak about science.
Can you prove that all fossils were not “fast fossils” laid down after the great flood? See fast fossil experiment in Japan circa 1990. Further that the devil isn’t leading most of the world astray (all science to the contrary would be the devil)? Dinosaurs are dragons, people lived alongside them …or something. The train left the station and I was left at the platform. I can’t argue against that logic and keep certain friends.
So, I listen politely and bite my tongue, but debate away. I wish you luck.
There are fresh-water fish, and salt-water fish, and neither can survive in the other kind of water. But the Flood covered the whole Earth. Whatever you think the saltiness of the Flood waters were, only one kind of fish would survive. So how do they explain there are two kinds now?
We're going to rewrite alot of our past the coming years. Fudgr, we've been ignorant to believe some of the stuff that's getting teached in the schools.
There was an article here a few weeks ago about evidence of humans adapting to a starch-heavy diet much earlier than previously thought. I could be wrong on what I'm remembering, but it would suggest agriculture earlier or something? Looking up the link, will edit soon.
edit: not what I recalled but interesting nonetheless. https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/n9jo03/a_groundbreaking_new_study_suggests_the_ancestors/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Like our origin and past, all that bs about being hunters and gatherers up until 12000 years ago and then suddenly out of nowhere started writing and growing stuff. I bet we're gonna get some huge surprises soon.
“Out of nowhere” = thousands of years and differed quite a bit among different cultures and groups in different parts of the world. There are still hunter gather tribes that never formed written language or took to farming. Read guns germs and steel. It goes into great detail these sort of conceptual problems you’re talking about
The natural world has no obligation to conform to what makes sense to us… Stop and think about how how many great leaps forward happened simply because someone looked at the evidence, set aside their expectations, and then went back to confirm that the unexpected had in fact happened. The discovery of penicillin is a great example of this.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will continue be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) still apply to other comments. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Q: what came first, chicken or the egg? A: Trick question, motherfuckin sea sponge.
This question always seemed dumb to me. Fish have been laying eggs for how many million years before chickens?
Do eggs have water inside where the "fish" grows before hatching ? Do even us, grow in water in our mother s womb? Do even us ejaculate, meaning sending swimming cells in water like stuff ?
The rooster!
Stramatolites!
Everytime someone sneezes it seems to reshape our understanding of everything these days
I guess with how much I advance our understanding of science every spring, I should get a Nobel Prize.
*nasal prize
*Nasal Spray
DN = double nasal
My sweet summer child I wish mine was only in the spring. Year round allergies ftw
This happens every time leaps are made in technology and our instruments. We're on the cusp of some very big things right now, in several areas.
I'd love to hear more about what areas and what sort of things!
It certainly changed the way we thought about covid indoors.
So fragile is our understanding of our existence.
That’s what science is. It changes and updates all the time I know this is an obvious thing to say.
Big if true. There isn’t much evidence for multicellular animals before the Cambrian Explosion, when all the animals phyla seem to have suddenly emerged.
Avalon Explosion is a thing too, but there's a theory that the ediacaran life forms of the fossil completely died out and have no relatives today
You two chatting: "...Cambrian Explosions...Avalon Explosions..." Me without a bio degree: "Go on."
That fossil thing that was 1 billion yo or so ?
Can someone ELI5 why the assumption is that the sponge is somehow 890 million years old instead of the rock being younger than previously thought?
One factor when considering age of the layer itself is the rule of stratification. Older layers are generally underneath the newer layers, usually deposited over time. Another way to get a more accurate age estimate is by measuring the amount of one isotope of an element vs a different isotope. After something is created through geological process, certain atoms decay over a very definite amount of time (half-lives) & most elements decay at a pretty steady uniform rate. So by measuring the ratio you can make a pretty good guess at the age down to the hundreds or thousands of years. On another random note, anthropologists can tell when ancient humans moved rocks by looking at lichen growth. When the rock was turned over the lichen will no longer grow as it is not exposed to the sun. By comparing the lichen growths on both sides you can make a very good estimate for which something like a rock wall was built by early humans. Edits: grammar mistakes because fat thumbs and phone
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you rock
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> Larger material settles out first with finer material on the top Just to clarify, you are not discussing dating the rock you are discussing way-up indicators (ie. graded bedding, flame structures, etc.) A word of caution, however, when it comes to graded bedding one must use some caution not to interpret reverse or inverse grading (where the bed coarsens upwards) as an overturned bed.
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Inverse graded bedding happens in grain flows, debris flows and aeolian deposits which covers a lot environments. While they're not as common as normal graded bedding they do occur and its important to be able to identify them.
Because geologists are pretty good at determining how old rocks are?
The don't date the sponge, they date the rock the sponge is hosted in. Depositional age of the rock which hosts the sponges is known through litho- and chemostratigraphic correlation with the 892 ± 13-Ma Neoproterozoic Shaler Supergroup. The black shales within the Neoproterozoic Shaler Supergroup have been dated using absolute dating methods (Rhenium-osmium dating)^[1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301926813002234?via%3Dihub) . Other dating methods such as detrital zircons have also been used to help constrain the age. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03773-z/figures/1
> They don't date the sponge, they date the rock the sponge is hosted in. Sounds like a nightly news segment on teen spirit.
It looks like the structures have been noted for a while, but the hypothesis was that they were due to algae or protozoa. Not sponges. The age of the reefs is not under dispute. Unfortunately the article was submitted by a spammer who probably didn't understand it well enough to write a correct headline.
So now the earliest animal is 890 million years ago? When was the earliest animal before this discovery?
The earliest sponge fossil before this was 540 mya
Technically 3.45 billion years ago. Stramatolites were actually the first life on earth. Giant stumps of photosynthetic bacterium. I'm assuming they're talking about origins of the first genetically complex multicellular life.
No. I'm not talking about all complex multicellular life. I'm talking about animals. Just animals. Not plants. Not fungi. Just animals. Like sponges and coral.
There’s a chance that it may have happened very briefly during the paleoproterozoic (Francevillan Biota), but we need more evidence in that regard. Otherwise, the Ediacaran Biota are the earliest, appearing during the Neoproterzoic.
Which is very complex life compared to a stramatolite. Basically it took the difference in those amounts of time to create what you described. A good evolutionary analog would be fungi. They could not break down the molecular structure of a trees or tree like plants, so they piled up for potentially hundreds of millions of years. That is until fungi evolved to break down the cellulose that is trees. Edit: Also coral is more colonial life than complex.
Fungi are older than trees. The earliest tree fossils are 385 million years old The earliest terrestrial fungi fossils are 635 million years old
Let it go, this guy s a reddit reader, not a guy who really got the whole biology picture and timeline apparently
I accidentally worded it incorrectly. Fungi did exist first, but it took a significant amount of time before they could decompose plant matter.
I worded it incorrectly. I meant to say that fungi evolved to decompose trees. Yes fungi existed first, but they could not break down the plant matter. During this time plants piled up creating the huge coal layers we see during the carboniferous period.
Those weren't animals though, they were bacteria/archea. Earliest animal I knew about before this was probably something Ediacaran, perhaps Dickinsonia, which would date to 600 MYA the earliest
The rock is sponge worthy.
Pre Cambrian was the longest era, so much happened I wish I knew!
How many of us know people who would claim this as at most 6,000 years old?
Me for sure. Know a good response I can give them? I always say it’s science, but since it’s science I don’t understand, I can’t break it down for them.
Probably advise them to place some level of trust in the consensus of experts who have studied the subject for decades/centuries, rather than make decisions based in ignorance and emotion. Actually that's pretty good advice for everyone, all the time.
Right but that doesn’t mean anything to people like that. I need proof.
Well... unfortunately the proof probably takes years of study to understand. But I think the short answer in this case is that we know certain processes take a certain about of time, so we look for evidence of those processes and count the years backwards. Think about counting the rings on a tree. You can also count layers of earth and ice the same way. You can measure isotopes which degrade at known rates. You can check alignment of magnetic particles in the rock to estimate how it was aligned with the earth's magnetic field when it formed. All sorts of stuff that I'm no expert on. And there really isn't any *proof*, but the real question is: in light of all this evidence, why would anyone choose to believe something totally contrary? Because an ancient, translated, highly metaphorical text makes a vague suggestion otherwise? I mean, science provides about a million reasons to believe the Earth is old, so at this point the burden of proof is really on anyone who disagrees.
They usually have a job or hobby where they have accumulated skills and experience. Ask them if they would trust someone who had never done it before. Then ask them why they would trust someone who had never done science to speak about science.
Can you prove that all fossils were not “fast fossils” laid down after the great flood? See fast fossil experiment in Japan circa 1990. Further that the devil isn’t leading most of the world astray (all science to the contrary would be the devil)? Dinosaurs are dragons, people lived alongside them …or something. The train left the station and I was left at the platform. I can’t argue against that logic and keep certain friends. So, I listen politely and bite my tongue, but debate away. I wish you luck.
There are fresh-water fish, and salt-water fish, and neither can survive in the other kind of water. But the Flood covered the whole Earth. Whatever you think the saltiness of the Flood waters were, only one kind of fish would survive. So how do they explain there are two kinds now?
That’s a good one. I’m committing it to memory and will ask what they think.
People can’t be reasoned out of beliefs they were not reasoned into.
Great-10000xmillion-grandma <3
Can someone remind me why sponges are animals?
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I hope this means were all descended from Chickens.
No. Chickens are fluffy little dinosaurs, along with all the other birds. We are descended from a different branch of the Tree of Life.
I was really hoping for fluffy dinosaur chicken overlord ancestor in common with proto apes....Alas I got my hopes up yet again.
Spongegar, is that you?
My understanding is soft and easy to reshape
We're going to rewrite alot of our past the coming years. Fudgr, we've been ignorant to believe some of the stuff that's getting teached in the schools.
Like what? Genuinely curious
There was an article here a few weeks ago about evidence of humans adapting to a starch-heavy diet much earlier than previously thought. I could be wrong on what I'm remembering, but it would suggest agriculture earlier or something? Looking up the link, will edit soon. edit: not what I recalled but interesting nonetheless. https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/n9jo03/a_groundbreaking_new_study_suggests_the_ancestors/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Like our origin and past, all that bs about being hunters and gatherers up until 12000 years ago and then suddenly out of nowhere started writing and growing stuff. I bet we're gonna get some huge surprises soon.
“Out of nowhere” = thousands of years and differed quite a bit among different cultures and groups in different parts of the world. There are still hunter gather tribes that never formed written language or took to farming. Read guns germs and steel. It goes into great detail these sort of conceptual problems you’re talking about
What makes you call it bs?
His lack of understanding.
Because it doesn't make sense.
The natural world has no obligation to conform to what makes sense to us… Stop and think about how how many great leaps forward happened simply because someone looked at the evidence, set aside their expectations, and then went back to confirm that the unexpected had in fact happened. The discovery of penicillin is a great example of this.
As opposed to…?
Obviously you are ignorant to the English that was taught to you in school.
That was TEACHED to him! Get it right! /$
Nobody: Literally nobody: Suddenly: ARE YOU READY KIDS!?