La vie au Cambrien et au Silurien, reconstructions vidéo :

[JacquesL]

La vie au Cambrien et au Silurien, reconstructions vidéo :
http://www.wat.tv/video/terre-avant-dinosaures-1cgrw_1cba2_.html
Emission de FR3. Il y aurait dû y avoir six épisodes, un seul est réalisé là.

[JacquesL]

Les variations de la biodiversité de la fin du Protérozoïque au Cambrien moyen : les causes de l'Explosion Cambrienne

http://membres.multimania.fr/paleorcl/explosion%20cambrienne.htm

Les variations de la biodiversité de la fin du Protérozoïque au Cambrien moyen : les causes de l'Explosion Cambrienne

Introduction

I) La paléontologie du Précambrien terminal
A) De 600 à 570 Ma
B) De 565 à 543 Ma : la faune d'Ediacara

II) Paléontologie du Cambrien
A) 536 Ma : les Small Shelly Fossils
B) 530 Ma à 527 Ma : la faune tommotienne
C) 527 Ma : la faune de Chengjiang
D) 520 Ma : la faune de Burgess (Cambrien moyen)
E) Résumé

III) Les causes de l'Explosion cambrienne
A) Les causes externes influençant l'écosystème marin et les processus biologiques
1) La tectonique des plaques
2) Les variations du climat
3) Principales variations chimiques
B) Les causes internes à l'écosystème marin
C) Les causes internes aux organismes : la génétique
....

[JacquesL]

Sur la fin de la glaciation Marinoéenne ?

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-debunks-theory-snowball-earth-ice.html

Le titre est outrancier (notamment parce qu'ils négligent de préciser quelle est donc cette théorie hégémonique à qui ils remontent les bretelles), mais l'étude demeure intéressante :

Study debunks theory on end of 'Snowball Earth' ice age
May 25, 2011

A team of scientists led by researchers from Caltech report in this week's issue of the journal Nature that the rocks on which much of a theory on how the "Snowball Earth" ice age ended was based were formed millions of years after the ice age ended, and were formed at temperatures so high there could have been no living creatures associated with them.

There's a theory about how the Marinoan ice age—also known as the "Snowball Earth" ice age because of its extreme low temperatures—came to an abrupt end some 600 million years ago. It has to do with large amounts of methane, a strong greenhouse gas, bubbling up through ocean sediments and from beneath the permafrost and heating the atmosphere.

The main physical evidence behind this theory has been samples of cap dolostone from south China, which were known to have a lot less of the carbon-13 isotope than is normally found in these types of carbonate rocks. (Dolostone is a type of sedimentary rock composed of the carbonate mineral, dolostone; it's called cap dolostone when it overlies a glacial deposit.) The idea was that these rocks formed when Earth-warming methane bubbled up from below and was oxidized—"eaten"—by microbes, with its carbon wastes being incorporated into the dolostone, thereby leaving a signal of what had happened to end the ice age. The idea made sense, because methane also tends to be low in carbon-13; if carbon-13-depeleted methane had been made into rock, that rock would indeed also be low in carbon-13. But the idea was controversial, too, since there had been no previous isotopic evidence in carbonate rock of methane-munching microbes that early in Earth's history.

And, as a team of scientists led by researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) report in this week's issue of the journal Nature, it was also wrong—at least as far as the geologic evidence they looked at goes. Their testing shows that the rocks on which much of that ice-age-ending theory was based were formed millions of years after the ice age ended, and were formed at temperatures so high there could have been no living creatures associated with them.



This image shows unusual textures exposed in the cap dolostone from the field. Hand lens for scale is about 1 inch long. Credit: Thomas Bristow
"Our findings show that what happened in these rocks happened at very high temperatures, and abiologically," says John Eiler, the Robert P. Sharp Professor of Geology and professor of geochemistry at Caltech, and one of the paper's authors. "There is no evidence here that microbes ate methane as food. The story you see in this rock is not a story about ice ages."

To tell the rocks' story, the team used a technique Eiler developed at Caltech that looks at the way in which rare isotopes (like the carbon-13 in the dolostone) group, or "clump," together in crystalline structures like bone or rock. This clumping, it turns out, is highly dependent upon the temperature of the immediate environment in which the crystals form. Hot temperatures mean less clumping; low temperatures mean more.

"The rocks that we analyzed for this study have been worked on before," says Thomas Bristow, the paper's first author and a former postdoc at Caltech who is now at NASA Ames Research Center, "but the unique advance available and developed at Caltech is the technique of using carbonate clumped-isotopic thermometry to study the temperature of crystallization of the samples. It was primarily this technique that brought new insights regarding the geological history of the rocks."

What the team's thermometer made very clear, says Eiler, is that "the carbon source was not oxidized and turned into carbonate at Earth's surface. This was happening in a very hot hydrothermal environment, underground."

In addition, he says, "We know it happened at least millions of years after the ice age ended, and probably tens of millions. Which means that whatever the source of carbon was, it wasn't related to the end of the ice age."




This is a view from one of the cap dolostone collection sites in south China, looking along the cliffs of the Yangtze Gorges. Credit: Thomas Bristow
Since this rock had been the only carbon-isotopic evidence of a Precambrian methane seep, these findings bring up a number of questions—questions not just about how the Marinoan ice age ended, but about Earth's budget of methane and the biogeochemistry of the ocean.

"The next stage of the research is to delve deeper into the question of why carbon-13-depleted carbonate rocks that formed at methane seeps seem to only be found during the later 400 million years of Earth history," says John Grotzinger, the Fletcher Jones Professor of Geology at Caltech and the principal investigator on the work described. "It is an interesting fact of the geologic record that, despite a well-preserved record of carbonates beginning 3.5 billion years ago, the first 3 billion years of Earth history does not record evidence of methane oxidation. This is a curious absence. We think it might be linked to changes in ocean chemistry through time, but more work needs to be done to explore that."

Provided by California Institute of Technology

[JacquesL]

Première grosse glaciation archéenne :

http://www.physorg.com/news5576.html
http://www.physorg.com/print5576.html

Evolutionary Accident Probably Caused The Worst Snowball Earth Episode, Study Shows
August 2nd, 2005 in Space & Earth /

For several years geologists have been gathering evidence indicating that Earth has gone into a deep freeze on several occasions, with ice covering even the equator and with potentially devastating consequences for life. The theory, known as "Snowball Earth," has been lacking a good explanation for what triggered the global glaciations.

Now, the California Institute of Technology research group that originated the Snowball Earth theory has proposed that the culprit for the earliest and most severe episode may have been lowly bacteria that, by releasing oxygen, destroyed a key gas keeping the planet warm.

In the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Caltech graduate student Robert Kopp and his supervising professor, Joe Kirschvink, along with alumnus Isaac Hilburn (now a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and graduate student Cody Nash, argue that cyanobacteria (or blue-green algae) suddenly evolved the ability to break water and release oxygen about 2.3 billion years ago. Oxygen destroyed the greenhouse gas methane that was then abundant in the atmosphere, throwing the global climate completely out of kilter.

Though the younger sun was only about 85 percent as bright as it is now, average temperatures were comparable to those of today. This state of affairs, many researchers believe, was due to the abundance of methane, known commercially as natural gas. Just as they do in kitchen ranges, methane and oxygen in the atmosphere make an unstable combination; in nature they react in a matter of years to produce carbon dioxide and water. Though carbon dioxide is also a greenhouse gas, methane is dozens of times more so.

The problem began when cyanobacteria evolved into the first organisms able to use water in photosynthesis, releasing oxygen into the environment as a waste product. More primitive bacteria depend upon soluble iron or sulfides for use in photosynthesis; the switch to water allowed them to grow almost everywhere that had light and nutrients. Many experts think this happened early in Earth history, between 3.8 and 2.7 billion years ago, in which case some process must have kept the cyanobacteria from destroying the methane greenhouse for hundreds of millions of years. The Caltech researchers, however, find no hard evidence in the rocks to show that the switch to water for photosynthesis occurred prior to 2.3 billion years ago, which is about when the Paleoproterozoic Snowball Earth was triggered.

For cyanobacteria to trigger the rapid onset of a Snowball Earth, they must have had an ample supply of key nutrients like phosphorous and iron. Nutrient availability is why cyanobacterial blooms occur today in regions with heavy agricultural runoff.

Fortunately for the bacteria, Earth 2.3 billion years ago had already entered a moderately cold period, reflected in glacially formed rocks in Canada. Measurements of the magnetization of these Canadian rocks, which the Caltech group published earlier this year, indicate that the glaciers that formed them may have been at middle latitudes, just like the glaciers of the last ice age.

The action of the glaciers, grinding continental material into powder and carrying it into the oceans, would have made the oceans rich in nutrients. Once cyanobacteria evolved this new oxygen-releasing ability, they could feast on this cornucopia, turning an ordinary glaciation into a global one.

"Their greater range should have allowed the cyanobacteria to come to dominate life on Earth quickly and start releasing large amounts of oxygen," Kopp says.

This was bad for the climate because the oxygen destabilized the methane greenhouse. Kopp and Kirschvink's model shows that the greenhouse may have been destroyed in as little as 100,000 years, but almost certainly was eliminated within several million years of the cyanobacteria's evolution into an oxygen-generating organism. Without the methane greenhouse, global temperatures plummeted to -50 degrees Celsius.

The planet went into a glacial period so cold that even equatorial oceans were covered with a mile-thick layer of ice. The vast majority of living organisms died, and those that survived, either underground or at hydrothermal vents and springs, were probably forced into bare subsistence. If correct, the authors note, then an evolutionary accident triggered the world's worst climate disaster.

However, in evolving to cope with the new influx of oxygen, many survivors gained the ability to breathe it. This metabolic process was capable of releasing much energy and eventually allowing the evolution of all higher forms of life.

Kirschvink and his lab have earlier shown a mechanism by which Earth could have gotten out of Snowball Earth. After some tens of millions of years, carbon dioxide would build up to the point that another greenhouse took place. In fact, the global temperature probably bounced back to +50 degrees Celsius, and the deep-sea vents that provided a refuge for living organisms also had steadily released various trace metals and nutrients. So not only did life return after the ice layers melted, but it did so with a magnificent bloom.

"It was a close call to a planetary destruction," says Kirschvink. "If Earth had been a bit further from the sun, the temperature at the poles could have dropped enough to freeze the carbon dioxide into dry ice, robbing us of this greenhouse escape from Snowball Earth."

Of course, 2.3 billion years is a very long time ago. But the episode points to a grim reality for the human race if conditions ever resulted in another Snowball Earth. We who are living today will never see it, but Kirschvink says that an even worse Snowball Earth could occur if the conditions were again right.

"We could still go into Snowball if we goof up the environment badly enough," he says. "We haven't had a Snowball in the past 630 million years, and because the sun is warmer now it may be harder to get into the right condition. But if it ever happens, all life on Earth would likely be destroyed. We could probably get out only by becoming a runaway greenhouse planet like Venus."

Source: California Institute of Technology