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UV RADIATION. “The other lethal radiation is the high-energy fraction of ultraviolet light (short-wavelength UVB and shorter UVC) in the short-wavelength tail of solar radiation that consists mostly of visible light. UVB is mostly absorbed by a diffuse layer of ozone (O3) in the stratosphere and UVC is scattered to harmlessness by O2 and N2 molecules (which makes Earth's sky appear blue).” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825219302636?via=ihub View in LinkedIn

COSMIC RADIATION. “One prerequisite is that two types of incoming radiation must have been largely blocked to allow profusely varied life forms to exist on Earth's surface. One of the lethal radiation types consists of cosmic rays (high-energy ionized particles from the Sun and from outside the Solar System) which are now mostly blocked from the surface by Earth's internally generated strong dipolar magnetic field.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825219302636?via=ihub View in LinkedIn

CONTENTIOUS STORY. “The causes of evolution across those two great thresholds, about 600 and 540 m.y. ago, have been subjects of much debate.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825219302636?via=ihub View in LinkedIn

OVERBEARING BIAS. “Most geoscience is done by interpreting the parts in terms of the assumed whole. Basic assumptions often are so entrenched that practitioners are unaware that there might be little or no evidence behind them. Data, narrowly sought and interpreted, fill the space between starting assumptions and conclusions required by them.” https://lnkd.in/d8kyQ4xj View in LinkedIn

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