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THE CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION. “Then came the Cambrian explosion of evolution, starting about 540 m.y. ago, and within about 50 m.y. most of the phyla of modern animals had been generated including the chordates to which we belong. Some animals were a meter long.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825219302636?via=ihub View in LinkedIn

STIFLING DEBATE. “I know of many recent examples wherein prominent members of the dominant pro-plume community have stifled anti-plume reports and research. Although such perpetrators might tell themselves that they are maintaining professional standards, bad science is to them anything contrary to their own conjectures. (I have been guilty of this myself in other contexts).” https://lnkd.in/d8kyQ4xj View in LinkedIn

LATER MULTICELLULAR LIFE. “Soft-bodied multicellular organisms first appeared about 600 m.y. ago. During Ediacarian time (from then until about 540 m.y.) these are known only as soft-sediment impressions of unclear taxonomy and even whether they were plants or extremely primitive animals is unknown.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825219302636?via=ihub View in LinkedIn

ENTRENCHED OPPOSITION. “Professor Hamilton believes in plate tectonics, but has come to realize that a generally accepted component of the theory, mantle plumes, is wrong. The opposition he witnessed to any challenge to plumes exposed an ugly side of the academic geology world that many are unaware of.” https://lnkd.in/d8kyQ4xj View in LinkedIn

EARLY PROKARYOTIC LIFE ON EARTH. “Life was present on Earth by 3.6 or 3.5 b.y. ago but until the latest Proterozoic, 3 b.y. later, it was limited to single-celled organisms. Early on these were only of prokaryotes whose cells lacked nuclei—bacteria, including photosynthetic (which released O2) and methanogenic types and Archaea—but they later included probable unicellular eukaryotes with nuclei.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825219302636?via=ihub View in LinkedIn

PRECISE MAGNETIC HISTORY DATING. “Magnetic reversals and the record they leave in the oceanic crust in the form of negatively and positively magnetized stripes paralleling the oceanic spreading centres, among other data, enable us to track the motion path of continents back to 150 Ma with great precision, and back to 230 Ma with some precision.” https://lnkd.in/eJYccnpE View in LinkedIn

MAGNETIC SHIELD AND CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION. “Organic evolution may have been enabled by geodynamic changes, particularly if the possible origin of Earth's strong dipolar magnetic field coincident with the origin of the asthenosphere and plate tectonics about 600 m.y. ago is valid.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825219302636?via=ihub View in LinkedIn

SALUTE TO WARREN HAMILTON. “The Plate Tectonic Pump: How the Transition from Single Lid to Plate Tectonics Stimulates Biological Evolution" presented by Dr. Robert Stern and Dr. Taras Gerya. Originally presented at GSA 2019 in Phoenix in the session "Unconventional Ideas and Outrageous Hypotheses: In Honor of Warren B. Hamilton”. https://lnkd.in/ev5Grjwz View in LinkedIn

TESTABLE HYPOTHESIS. “Recent advances in orbital understanding and paleomagnetic evidence suggests such speculative ideas but much more information of course is needed to test it.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825219302636?via%3Dihub View in LinkedIn

ORBITAL CONSEQUENCES. “This may have generated torques and frictional heating that caused not only development of an asthenosphere, enabling plate tectonics, but also influenced convection in the outer core. This in turn enabled differential core motions and development of an inner core and internal strong dipolar magnetic field for the first time, shielding Earth's surface from solar-particle bombardment and enabling evolution.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825219302636?via=ihub View in LinkedIn