Why did it take so long before animals appeared on Earth?

August 28, 2017By Tais W DahlUncategorized

One of the big mysteries in the history of life is why it took so long time for complex organisms to evolve. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old and fossils of the first motile animals are ca. 555 million years old. It took 3,945,000,000 years or almost 4 million millennia before evolution in mostly microbial ecosystems evolved organisms with a capacity to … Read More

Lecture: Andy Knoll – Systems Paleobiology

May 30, 2017By Tais W DahlUncategorized

The relationship between Earth and life through time How Systems Paleobiology uses physiology as the conceptual bridge between paleobiological and geochemical data sets and provides us with a template for understanding global climate change and evaluation of the habitability of other planets.  Professor Andrew H. Knoll, Fisher Professor of Natural History,Departments of Organismic and Evolutionary … Read More