Jump to content

What's your favorite geologic period?

cubinator

By cubinator
in The Lounge

 Share

Which geologic period is the best?  

25 members have voted

  1. 1. Which is your favorite geologic period?

    • Precambrian
      2
    • Cambrian
      10
    • Ordovician
      0
    • Silurian
      0
    • Devonian
      0
    • Carboniferous
      2
    • Permian
      0
    • Triassic
      1
    • Jurassic
      1
    • Cretaceous
      2
    • Paleogene
      1
    • Neogene
      1
    • Quaternary
      5

Recommended Posts

cubinator

cubinator

Posted
Posted (edited)

What is your favorite geologic period? I like the Cambrian for the huge explosion of diversity, but giant arthropods make the Carboniferous hard to beat. Explain your favorites here!

Edited by cubinator
"Cool" implies a relation to temperature, which would skew results of the poll as some people like to interpret things literally all the time (myself included).
Link to comment
Share on other sites
cubinator

cubinator

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, StrandedonEarth said:

The most recent Ice Age

 

21 minutes ago, Dispatcher said:

The Precambrian was the coolest ... because it contained the Cryogenian!  Yep, Snowball Earth!

Just to be clear, I want you guys to answer the poll based on what is your favorite geologic period in terms of how awesome/interesting/etc it is, NOT literally by how "cool" it is in terms if temperature. I'm pretty sure you're not doing it, and Snowball Earth is cool and all, and I can see why they're awesome, but I'm just making sure. I want legitimate answers! :)

Edited by cubinator
Smilies convey friendliness where text alone cannot.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Nikolai

Nikolai

Posted
Posted

The Devonian.  Hands down.  It was home to some of the weirdest organisms I've ever seen.  (Dunkleosteus?  Helicoprion?)  Plus, vertebrates were just beginning to invade the land, and the planet was populated with vast coral reefs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
cubinator

cubinator

Posted
  • Author
Posted
2 hours ago, razark said:

The part with "two meter" and also the "millipede" part.

C'mon, the thing was an HERBIVORE! You'd rather see a giant toothed bird that would bite you in half in an instant? At least you have a chance at outrunning a 20-pound scorpion!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Bill Phil

Bill Phil

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, LordFerret said:

They're all interesting. My pick however is the Late Pleistocene, because of the Dmanisi skull 5. Kinda blows the 'out of Africa' theory out of the water.

Not really. We wouldn't really be as similar as we all are today if we didn't come from a certain environment long ago. Environment is a huge aspect of evolution. It's almost impossible for humans that are that similar to evolve in different places. But, if we merged with the local populations of Homo species, like the Neanderthals, it would make more sense and be more likely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
PB666

PB666

Posted
Posted
17 hours ago, LordFerret said:

They're all interesting. My pick however is the Late Pleistocene, because of the Dmanisi skull 5. Kinda blows the 'out of Africa' theory out of the water.

Actually, it doesn't, the Georgian hominids represent the prototypical Homo erectus, but there were already prototypes of ergaster in Africa, namely australopithicus africanus, sediba, and homo rudolfensis. The only major difference is cranial capacity, which is variable in the georgian early archaics and the sample size of rudolfensis is too inadequate to tell. The Desinovan hominid has mostly neandertal DNA, but has traces of older archaics which includes an mtDNA that date to before 1.5 mya for the TMRCA with humans and neanderthals. How we can deduce that Africa was the source is that morphological variance in Africa for late australopithicus and Homo is much greater that in Asia from the period of 1.5 mya to 2.0 mya. This is indicative of a movement of genes from one place to another. Clearly Dmanisi was part of the groups of hominids, may have migrated in and out of Africa, but eventually something similar established in Eurasia. After which there appears to have been one or more migrations from Africa, this may have included the ancestors of most of the desinovans, classic Neanderthals and finally homo sapiens. However it is not clear whether desinovan evolved from European 'heidelbergensis' or African as there have been hominids that are morphologically similar and show a continuity of evolution all the way to Skhul V. Then finally it is probable but not clear that homo florensiensis evolved from Erectus, the hominim had many features similar with Georgian, but also feature similar to australopithicus, so it could have represented an additional wave from Africa. Given the 5 or so somewhat distinct morphotypes of homo erectus after 500kya in Asia, it is probable that most evolved from a single root population before 1 mya.

The modern human population as a whole is about 98% Out of africa after 140 kya (this includes all mtDNA and all Y chromosome types). Japanese, according to Sarah Tishkoff have as much as 6% of Neandertal-like DNA, and the latest studies from specific tribes in Papua New Guinea show them with about 15% (although I haven't had a chance to read the paper). The larger regional percent is nodal at about 8%. And of course the last Neandertals were observed in Gibralter Spain, whose Neandertal percent is 2%. Even Paabo, who discovered the Neandertal DNA suggest that admixture occurred in SW asia before 40kya, and this could have included NE Africa. The latest claim from desinovan recombination studies is a very small number (1, 2) desinovan-DNA carriers mixed with humans in PNG, this is what happens with founder effects. I suspect a similar result with Neandertals, but that there are cryptic additional events in Asia.

I pick the anthropocene, cause its got a catchy new name that starts with something like the KT (CP) boundary, that is something really bad starts to happen in a very short period of time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
kerbiloid

kerbiloid

Posted
Posted (edited)

Paleogene, epoch of enormous mammals.

In "Walking with Beasts" series and etc. it looks like an uncanny valley alive.

Mind tells: "This is just a dog. Kind of. This is just a pig. This is just a... e-eh... some animal too. Probably this... thing will purr if scratch its ears",
But eyes see something absolutely alien, improper and abnormal, something of deformed and erroneous shape  as that dog in "The Fly" movie.
But this creature is not deformed, it's absolutely healthy and happy, though it looks like a human's nightmare.

P.S.
Anomalocaris is fine, too (from Cambrian). My first successful KSP lunar ship was called "Anomalocaris-4" due to its idiotic shape and serial number.

 

Edited by kerbiloid
Link to comment
Share on other sites
dutchy45

dutchy45

Posted
Posted

1 picked Carboniferous, but not for the millipedes. The oxygen level really went up at that time (even higher than today's levels) giving animals the opportunity to make use of that in really weird new ways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 7 years later...
Kimera Industries

Kimera Industries

Posted
Posted
On 5/12/2016 at 10:36 AM, dutchy45 said:

1 picked Carboniferous, but not for the millipedes. The oxygen level really went up at that time (even higher than today's levels) giving animals the opportunity to make use of that in really weird new ways.

Hate to necropost I really do but that's since been debunked. Giant arthropods like arthropleura reached their peak size well before the carboniferous and retained it well after. Me, I have to say Cretaceous, I like the birds too much. Still, RIP trilobites. Again, hate to necropost. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...