Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jesse · 06-16-2003, 09:34 AM

A potential problem that occurred to me about a Paleozoic show is that although it's possible to find regions where the plant life is reasonably close to what would have been around in the Mesozoic, the trees from earlier periods like the Carboniferous are just too different from anything alive today to do a location shoot (conifers and cycads, which exist today, first appeared in the late Carboniferous according to this page, so the Permian period after that would probably be OK). CG plants probably wouldn't look good, and it might be beyond their budget to make detailed sets big enough to shoot in. But maybe they could find existing reconstructions of flora from this period that they could use, like this one:

Quote:

The Carboniferous zone of the Evolution House which features reconstructions of Lepidodendron

Leading authorities on plant evolution, including Prof. W. Chaloner (RBG Kew Trustee) and Dr Marie Kurmann, advised on the project to ensure its scientific accuracy. The display concentrates on three key periods in plant evolutionary history: 400 million years ago (m.y.a.) at the end of the Silurian when vascular plants invaded the land, 300 m.y.a. in the Carboniferous when giant lycopsids dominated, and 100 m.y.a. at the beginning of the Cretaceous when angiosperms appeared. To set these periods in context, there are also areas showing a Pre-Cambrian landscape and Devonian and Jurassic floras. Living plants in the display have both taxonomic relationships and physical similarities to the extinct taxa they represent; fossil plants with no extant 'doubles' are reconstructed using convincing models - those of Lepidodendron being the most dramatic.

from http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/kewscientis...5/collect.html

Some pages on Paleozoic plants:

Paleozoic Plants

About Lycopsids

Doubting Didymus · 06-16-2003, 02:56 PM

I'd love to see the cambrian weirdoes in CG. There were some incredibly otherworldly things wriggling around back then.

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06-16-2003, 02:56 PM	#12
Doubting Didymus Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: East Coast. Australia. Posts: 5,455	I'd love to see the cambrian weirdoes in CG. There were some incredibly otherworldly things wriggling around back then.

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