Today we talked about a lot of things, starting with the origin of life. I find this topic particularly interesting and I stated my belief that life started in the sea. For me, it simply makes sense because the one of the first examples of terrestrial life, according to the fossil record, was the Markuelia 500 million years ago during the Middle Cambrian. Now, at this point in time conditions of the land were not ideal for life; there were nearly no flora present aside of microbial mats and fungi and this presented a problem for aspiring fauna who desired to leave the water. The fact that we are only finding life on land starting with Markuelia, for me at least, dismisses potential terrestrial origin of life. The sea then, is where to look. I like to believe life started in the hydrothermal vents; the only questions that remains is how life managed to escape the hydrothermal vents through the cold layer and into open water and the transition between chemo and photo synthesis. The video we saw on the matter I found to be very interesting, however I found these questions to unanswered, something I think is worth pursuing.
We also learned about the plates tectonics and about the layers of the Earth. The part that I found interesting was looking at the prehistoric conditions of the Earth’s continents as every time I see them I can’t help but wonder what it was like back then. What we spoke about today truly highlighted the importance of geology and how it plays a role in understanding our Earth. I always wondered, if we managed to get into the core of the Earth (Crazy I know) what would happen? As in, would the hole (presuming there is a hole leading up to the crust) cause the pressure that had built up in the core to de-pressurize? Then what? Just random questions that entered into my mind. Anyways I enjoy thinking about/talking about the past Earth so I definitely enjoyed today’s lesson. Reminds me of a book I read about prehistoric marine life. Good book, informative.
Dunkleosteus. 30 foot, 4 ton prehistoric placoderm (rivaled in size only by Titanichthys) that ruled the waters during the Late Devonian back when the world looked like this. Kinda cool. Dunkleosteus is one of my favourite prehistoric animals.
