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Wood ten million years older than thought?

Denyse O'Leary
August 11, 2011
Evolution, Plants
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In “Oldest Known Wood” (The Scientist , August 11, 2011) Jef Akst reports that “Two newly described fossils suggest that wood is some 10 million years older than previous believed” (No kidding!):

… two relatively small fossils provide new clues, and suggest that wood evolved at least 10 million years earlier than previously documented, according to a study published today (August 11) in Science.

One fossils is 407 million years old and the other 397 million years old, give or take a few million.

See also: Live birth in lizards developed earlier than thought

Comments
From the August 15, 2005 edition of TIME magazine: Evolution Wars. http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1090909,00.html Richard Dawkins: "Creationists are fond of saying that there are very few fossils in the Precambrian, but why would there be? asks Dawkins. "However, if there was a single hippo or rabbit in the Precambrian, that would completely blow evolution out of the water. None have ever been found." Someone should ask Dawkins if microfossils of pollen, spores, angiosperms, gymnosperms, and at least one winged insect, in Eocambrian (Upper Precambrian) rock completely blows evolution out of the water. Anyone want to speculate what his answer will be?r2d3
August 12, 2011
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Ah! The famous pre-Cambrian rabbit['s foot fern]!Ilion
August 12, 2011
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It's worse that that. How do Darwinists explain microfossils of pollen, spores, angiosperms, gymnosperms, and at least one winged insect, in Eocambrian (Upper Precambrian) rock? Eocambrian (Upper Precambrian): dated from about 1.6 billion to 600 million years ago "The discovery of pollen and spores in beds considered Precambrian (Proterozoic) has received brief notice in geological journals and the press." (Stainforth, R. M., "Occurance of Pollen and Spores in the Roraima Formation of Venezuela and British Guiana", Nature, 1966, 210, pp. 292-296.) http://rpasmd.org/rms/Discussion_Roraima.htm http://rpasmd.org/rms/Pollen_Roraima.htm http://creation.com/pollen-paradox * "The great majority are undeterminable as to genus and species, being mainly shreds of angiosperm wood, but there are also gymnosperm tracheids with large round bordered pits, and at least one good, winged, six-legged insect with compound eyes." (Sahni, B., "Age of the Saline Series in the Salt Range of the Punjab", Nature, 1944, 153, p. 462.) To Sahni, this meant the Salt Range Formation must be Eocene. He later found plant fragments not only in the kallar (thin layers of saline earth) but in associated solid rock layers composed of dolomite and shale. In his report, Sahni (1945, p. x) said "stringent precautions" were taken to prevent contamination of the samples with modern organic remains. He also emphasized that samples were taken from locations where the geological evidence ruled out intrusion from younger strata. Although modern geological reports acknowledge overthrusts in the Salt Range, they unanimously declare the Salt Range Formation to be Eocambrian, not Eocene. (Yeats et al. 1984, Butler et al. 1987, Jauné and Lillie 1988, Baker et al. 1988, Pennock et al. 1989, McDougall and Khan 1990). McDougall, J. W., and Khan, S. H., 1990, Strike-slip faulting in a foreland fold-thrust belt: The Kalabagh Fault and Western Salt Range, Pakistan: Tectonics, v. 9, pp. 1061-1075. http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1990/TC009i005p01061.shtml Eocene: dated from about 56 to 34 million years ago Eocambrian (Upper Precambrian): dated from about 1.6 billion to 600 million years agor2d3
August 12, 2011
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OT; News, you may be interested in this article today by Nancy Pearcey, responding to the smear job in the New Yorker Dangerous Influences: The New Yorker, Michele Bachmann, and Me by Nancy Pearcey http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=45467bornagain77
August 12, 2011
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Even without this pushing back by 10 million years of the "evolution" of wood, I'm thinking that wood must figure into that "abominable mystery" that flowering plants pose for Darwinism. Consider: 1) land plants are said to go back about 425 million years; 2) woody plants are (now) said to go back 407 million years; 3) flowering plants are said to go back about 125 million years; 4) some woody plants flower, some do not; 5) some non-woody plants flower, some do not; SO: Are all non-woody flowering plants descended from woody flowering plants? Or, did exactly the same method of reproduction "evolve" twice (or more)?Ilion
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