ps418

I guess I've already lapsed into overkill, but I cant resist mentioning two more examples of microfossil sorting.

The first example is taken from <a href="http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/orbulina.html" target="_blank">Don Lindsey's Orbulina webpage,</a> and is based on the article:

Stable isotopic evidence for the sympatric divergence of Globigerinoides trilobus and Orbulina universa (planktonic foraminifera), P.N. Pearson, N.J. Shackleton and M.A. Hall, Journal of the Geological Society, London, Vol. 154, 1997 pp. 295-302.

The chart below illustrates the stratigraphic ranges of several species of Miocene forams.



And here are the forams themselves:



"The small horizontal bars in the picture are size scales. Each bar represents 100 microns (one tenth of a millimeter).

Globigerinoides trilobus has, as the name says, three lobes. Picture number one shows the "spiral" side, and picture number two shows the "umbilical" side.

Orbulina universa is number 15, the spherical fossil. It seems featureless and boring, until you break one open, and discover a three-lobed inner shell. In fact, the sphere surrounds what is essentially a Globigerinoides. The sphere is grown by an amazing and complicated process. A bulge emerges through the main aperture of the inner shell, and forms a huge number of rhizopodia. They collectively grow a membrane on their tips, and the outer shell is then secreted onto that membrane. The high price of this process may explain why Orbulina is today less numerous than Globigerinoides. It is not known if forams obtain any advantage from being spherical.

Number 3 is G. bisphericus: numbers 4, 5 and 6 are Praeorbulina sicana. When these existed, there were also intermediates between them and G. trilobus, so all three were variants of a single species. Numbers 7 through 14 are transitional, and are shown in time order. The differences are mainly in the apertures, and in the size ratio of the inner and outer shells."

The second example comes from the Paleocene. See <a href="http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/foram_article.html" target="_blank">this article.</a>:




So, were all these forams preflood contemporaries that were somehow sorted by the flood?

Or did God create new marine microfaunas ex nihilo over and over and over again?

Or did God continually intervene to remodel or modify preexisting species (creation with modification)?

bluefugue

Patrick,

Keep up with the overkill, please. Regardless of what In His Name thinks of it, it is educational and useful for the rest of us.

Sauron

I certainly hope someone is suggesting to Patrick that he (hint, hint) submit a (hint, hint) paper to talk.origins (hint, hint) that contains all these excellent points.

It would be a shame (hint, hint) to waste them or keep them all to ourselves.

<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

ps418

Another example of fossil sorting -- conodont taxa right at the Cambrian/Ordovician boundary. I have more examples to give too, but I have this right in front of me at the moment. Data is taken from:

Ebneth, S., Shields, G.A., Veizer, J., Miller, J.F. and Shergold, J.H. (2001). High resolution strontium isotope stratigraphy across the Cambrian-Ordovician transition. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 65, 2273-2292.

. . . and refs therein. Except for the reference section, endemic species are not listed.

Chandler Creek section, Oklahoma [subzone - zone]

Cordylodus angulatus
O/C boundary
Iapetognathus
Cordylodus lindstromi
Clavohamulus hintzei--Cordylodus intermedius Zone
Hirsutodontus simplex --Cordylodus intermedius Zone
Clavohamulus elongatus --Cordylodus proavus Zone
Fryxel inornatus --Cordylodus proavus Zone
Hirsutodontus hirsutus --Cordylodus proavus Zone
Cambrooistudus minutus --Eoconodontus Zone
Eocondodontus notchpeakensis --Eoconodontus Zone
Procondodontus muelleri
Procondodontus posterocostatus
Procondodontus tenuiservatus

Texas Section -- identical to OK section

Cordylodus angulatus
O/C boundary
Iapetognathus
Cordylodus lindstromi
Clavohamulus hintzei--Cordylodus intermedius Zone
Hirsutodontus simplex --Cordylodus intermedius Zone
Clavohamulus elongatus --Cordylodus proavus Zone
Fryxel inornatus --Cordylodus proavus Zone
Hirsutodontus hirsutus --Cordylodus proavus Zone
Cambrooistudus minutus --Eoconodontus Zone
Eocondodontus notchpeakensis --Eoconodontus Zone
Procondodontus muelleri
Procondodontus posterocostatus
Procondodontus tenuiservatus


Jilin, China

Cordylodus angulatus
O/C boundary
Iapetognathus
Cordylodus intermedius
Cordylodus proavus
Cambrooistudus sp.
Procondodontus muelleri
Procondodontus posterocostatus
Procondodontus tenuiservatus

Black Mountain, Queensland, Australia

Cordylodus angulatus
O/C boundary
Cordylodus lindstromi
Hirsutodontus simplex
Cordylodus proavus

Pantera

Um... In His Name seems to have gone. I can't imagine why.

Jesse

These are some great posts! I just wanted to mention that, while looking through some old threads, I found another thread where Patrick posted some nice examples of fossil sorting (ammonites sorted by the complexity of the sutures on their shells, for example):

<a href="http://ii-f.ws/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=42&t=000153&p=8" target="_blank">COELACANTH</a> (near the middle of page 8)

Here's another page that talks about ammonites being sorted by suture complexity:

<a href="http://www.humboldt.edu/~natmus/Exhibits/FossilTypes/Ammonites/AmmSut.html" target="_blank">Suture Patterns within Subclass Ammonoidea</a>



Another interesting page on this:

<a href="http://www.math.union.edu/~framem/IMA/FB/NatFrac/Ammonite/Ammonite.html" target="_blank">Ammonite Sutures</a>

(this last point is controversial--for another opinion, see Robert Wright's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679758941/internetinfidelsA/" target="_blank">Nonzero</a>, or <a href="http://www.clark.net/pub/wright/gould.htm" target="_blank">this</a> article by Wright)

The fact remains, though, that if you look only at the ammonites with the most complex sutures from different eras, there is a continual increase in maximum suture complexity through time. It's hard to see how "flood sorting" could account for this pattern.

[ December 15, 2001: Message edited by: Jesse ]</p>

ps418

Jesse, as it turns out, I have a copy of the paper referenced above.

Boyajian and Lutz, 1992. Evolution of biological complexity and its relation to taxonomic longevity in the Ammonoidea, Geology, Vol. 20, pp. 983 - 986

Boyajian and Lutz compute fractal indices for the sutures in all 2100 described ammonoid genera. I'll post a few excerpts from the article.

Ammonoids are an extinct class of swimming, shelled mollusks encompassing six orders (Table 1). Their extensive fossil record extends over 330 m.y., during which time ammonoids displayed some of the highest rates of evolution recorded in the fossil record (Raup and Boyajian, 1988). Within the Ammonoidea, the evolution of sutures is an example of the evolution from simple to complex morphologies. The suture is the intersection of the wall of the chamber (septum) and the exterior shell wall and is visible only if the external layer of the shell is removed. Increased complexity of sutures results from fluting of the septa. The sutures are thought to have helped strengthen the shell against hydrostatic pressure (e.g., Westermann, 1973, 1975) and/or provided locations for muscle attachment (e.g., Lehmann, 1981). Whereas the Ammonoidea as a whole became more complex over their history, few investigators have attempted to assess any evolutionary advantage that complex sutures conferred on embers of the Ammonoidea.


We measured the fractal dimension of ammonoid sutures as a proxy for anatomical complexity. The genera within the Ammonoidea probably shared a common cephalopod soft-body architecture. However, sutures are a single feature of the organism that shows a marked change in complexity over the stratigraphic range of the class. Sutures described by Fourier series and specific notations developed by those working with ammonoids document the position and relative size of individual lobes, but do not communicate the general complexity of the suture. The "curviness" or the convolutions of the suture can be economically described by the fractal dimension. Previous workers recognized the self-similar nature of the suture (Seilacher, 1988), and others measured the fractal dimension in a few specimens (Boyajian, 1990, 1991; Garcia-Ruiz et al., 1990). Ward's (1980) index of suture complexity is equivalent to a sinuosity measure.

Fractal indices for ammonoid sutures range between 1.02 and 1.64. Simple sutures, those that are nearly a straight line, have fractal dimensions close to one (1.00; a line is one-dimensional). Sutures that are very complex, with multiple recursions, lobes, and saddles, have higher fractal dimensions. The upper limit of sutural complexity is determined by the size of the individual and the thickness of the septum (as measured in cross section), thus determining the maximum degree of septa fluting. Ammonoids displayed a wide range of sutural complexity over their 330 m.y. history.

Figure 2 shows the sutural complexity for the genera that originated in each stratigraphic stage. The earliest ammonoids, dominated by the Anarcestids and Clymeniids, displayed relatively simple sutures. Subsequent evolution through the Paleozoic, primarily by the Prolecanitids, Goniatites, and Ceratites, produced a steady increase in the average complexity of sutures. With the emergence and dominance of the Phylloceratids and the Ammonitids through the Mesozoic, the general trend of increasing complexity stopped. The Ammonites appear to have maintained their average sutural complexity or decreased slightly until their extinction at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. There are fewer simpler forms through the Mesozoic than lived during the Paleozoic. Sutural complexity increases from order to order (Table 1) and within orders (Boyajian and Lutz, unpublished).

The Class Ammonoidea shows the evolution of increasingly complex sutures. Both the mean and range of suture complexity increased over the stratigraphic range of the Ammonoidea. It appears that at least some of the increased complexity was the result of evolution away from a simple primitive condition. If the evolution of complexity was the result of natural selection, one might expect associated increases in taxonomic longevity. However, increased complexity within the Ammonoidea does not cause differential survival. This does not preclude natural selection as a cause of increased complexity, but it does suggest that demonstrating clearly the benefits of increased complexity may be difficult. Increased complexity may be the result of the experimentation of other anatomical features or the result of an evolutionary random walk.

[ December 15, 2001: Message edited by: ps418 ]</p>

gruveguy

Well Patrick, as a new guy I can definitely say that I am very impressed. Then again, you could just be making up a bunch of big words and fony sources just to mess with my mind, but I think that someone else would catch on. All this is definitely way over my head though, but I'm learning. Keep it up!
Ben

Kosh

What's more impressive is that Patrick is a "layman". No formal education on this stuff.
It's just his hobby....

"I collect molds, spores, and fungi"
- Igon, "Ghostbusters"

ps418

Jesse,

Regarding the evolution of suture complexity in ammonoids, there is another article you may want to check out. I'm reading it now, and it looks pretty good. It is available online for free:

<a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/286/5440/760" target="_blank">Evolution of Complexity in Paleozoic Ammonoid Sutures, Science 286, Number 5440, Issue of 22 Oct 1999, pp. 760-763.</a>