‘Geological Google’ and the ‘Basal’ Fossil Debate
Watch for the Coming of a “Geological Google”
e March 1 issue of the journal Science reports that China is backing a major international e ort to gather all geoscience databases into “a one-stop data shop” or a “geological Google” by 2020.
Dubbed Deep-time Digital Earth (DDE), the e ort aims to take treasure troves of data from institutions around the world that currently reside in scattered locations and in varied forms, including rock and fossil samples just sitting in boxes with paper labels that never have been adequately entered into any sort of modern database at all.
Per the report, such a massive database would allow scientists, in one fell swoop, to access “all the data they need to tackle big questions, such as patterns of biodiversity over time [or] the distribution of metal deposits.” While such a massive database has been envisioned in the past, this time the government of China is putting forth the
nancial backing to truly make it happen along with the support of the International Union of Geological Sciences.
It is hoped that the e ort, modeled on an already proven e ort in China (the Geobiodiversity Database, or GBDB) will allow geoscientists to use informatics, combining “big data” and analytical tools to tackle truly big questions at speeds and in a diversity of scope never before imagined.
More Exciting Evidence of the “Cambrian Explosion” from China
In 1909, Dr. Charles Doolittle Wolcott of the Smithsonian Institution uncovered a trove of so -bodied critters from the Cambrian Period 508 million years ago. Walcott found these in a formation called the Burgess Shale when his horse slipped on a rock during a leisurely family vacation in the Canadian Rockies. e so-called Qingjiang biota rivals and augments nd from the Burgess Shale in helping scientists understand biological innovation and diversi cation during this key period in the history of life on Earth.
As recorded on the pages of dark shale, life forms leaped from simple unicellular organisms to the complexity of modern-day life in a relatively short time span. Until Wolcott’s discovery, all we had to go on when it came to ancient life were the hard remains of shells and body armor. e Burgess Shale revealed so -bodied worms, jelly sh, sponges, and others perfectly preserved as carbon impressions.
Today, attention has shi ed from the Canadian Rockies to China. Per a report in the March 22 issue of the journal Science, so -bodied Cambrian fossils from China include a large number of previously undescribed 518-millionyear-old species. e so-called Qingjiang biota rivals and augments nds from the Burgess Shale in helping us understand biological innovation and diversi cation during this key period in the history of life on Earth.
e new nds exceed those of Walcott in both abundances and in the high delity of preservation. Fossils show such anatomical details as eyes, guts, and hair-like laments and limbs. Scientists have long debated whether the “basal” animal in the history of life is the jelly sh or the sponge. Some hope the new nds from China may help resolve this debate.
The Costly Coal Ash Legacy in North Carolina
A er waterpower, coal largely provided the energy that powered the Industrial Revolution. Today, coal remains a prime source of fuel for the creation of electricity in countries around the world. But it is also a big pollutant. “Scrubbers” have been installed in smokestacks at power plants where coal is burnt to take out substances such as sulfur rather than release them into the atmosphere and cause so-called acid rain.
But problems remain with the ash le behind a er coal has been burnt. Such coal ash is usually stored around
power plants, but toxic chemicals residing in the ash o en leak into water supplies. Also, region-wide catastrophes occasionally occur when ood waters from seasonal storms carry a slurry of coal ash throughout a watershed.
Per a recent report in USA Today, Duke
Energy Corporation (the largest electric company in the United States) was ordered on April 1 to excavate coal ash from all its North Carolina power plants.
us, residents there can rest easier knowing toxic residues from past decades nally will be removed.
On the other hand, there are always trade-o s. Per Duke Energy, costs for this removal will be in the billions of dollars, which will be passed along to consumers who still desire and need the electricity that coal generates. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers nor quick
xes when it comes to the balance between energy needs and the a ere ects of ful lling those needs.
How Earth Lost a Sibling but Gained a Life-Inducing Child
In its April issue, the journal Natural History contained an excerpt from a new book called Earth Shattering by Bob Berman. Berman reports on the latest evidence that a collision 4.5 billion years ago between Earth and a neighboring Mars-sized planet, dubbed eia, resulted in our unusually thick core as well as our companion Moon.
In something of an understatement, Berman notes that our “early days were not quiet.” Stepping back billion of years, our solar system had rocky bodies that were moltenhot and still condensing while inging around a much dimmer sun in orbits that were erratic at best while being smacked by asteroids and comets.Within this tumultuous environment, a proto-planet named eia collided with a still-forming Earth. e collision obliterated eia along with the entire Earth crust and sent out hot chunks that, within a mere 100 years, coalesced as our Moon.
e moons of most planets within our solar system orbit neatly around their planets’ equators, signifying that they likely formed at the same time as their parent planets. Not so our Moon, which is an entity much bigger than most moons and that also follows its own, unique orbit. at orbit stabilizes our axial tilt and actually provided just the right conditions for ameliorating seasons to form—seasons not too hot, not too cold, but just right. Seasons that made for an Earth conducive to the formation of life itself. ank you, eia!