Fossil record gaps not a major issue

[Pro Plyd]

https://phys.org/news/2024-08-darwin-unjustified-fossil-gaps-major.html

Darwin's fear was unjustified: Study suggests
fossil record gaps not a major issue

Fossils are used to reconstruct evolutionary
history, but not all animals and plants become
fossils and many fossils are destroyed before
we can find them (e.g., the rocks that contain
the fossils are destroyed by erosion). As a
result, the fossil record has gaps and is
incomplete, and we're missing data that we
need to reconstruct evolutionary history.

Now, a team of sedimentologists and
stratigraphers from the Netherlands and the
UK have examined how this incompleteness
influences the reconstruction of evolutionary
history. To their surprise, they found that
the incompleteness itself is actually not
such a big issue.
...
"The regularity of the gaps, rather than the
incompleteness itself, is what determines the
reconstruction of evolutionary history,"
explains Niklas Hohmann of Utrecht U
niversity's Faculty of Geosciences, who led
the study. "If a lot of data is missing, but
the gaps are regular, we could still
reconstruct evolutionary history without major
problems, but if the gaps get too long and
irregular, results are strongly biased."
...
Since Charles Darwin published his theory of
evolution, the incompleteness of the fossil
record has been considered problematic for
reconstructing evolutionary history from
fossils. Darwin feared that the gradual
change that his theory predicted would not
be recognizable in the fossil record due to
all the gaps.

"Our results show that this fear is
unjustified. We have a good understanding of
where the gaps are, how long they are and
what causes them. With this geological
knowledge, we can reconstruct evolution
hundreds of millions of years ago at an
unprecedented temporal resolution," says
Hohmann.
...


https://bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12862-024-02287-2

Identification of the mode of evolution in
incomplete carbonate successions

[RonO]

Post by Pro Plyd
https://phys.org/news/2024-08-darwin-unjustified-fossil-gaps-major.html
Darwin's fear was unjustified: Study suggests
fossil record gaps not a major issue

SNIP:

The simulation described in the paper is not realistic and likely
doesn't apply to terrestrial lifeforms. Their conclusions likely are
not valid. Erosion is not the main reason that there are gaps in the
fossil record. You need deposition to occur in order for the fossils to
be created, and deposition has to occur in the correct soils. The
greatest species diversity occurs in equatorial rain forests, but those
forest soils dissolve bone. So you have to exist in a place that can
produce fossils where deposition and not erosion is occurring. This
means that not all species have the same chance of being preserved, and
that their preservation is not going to be evenly distributed over the
landscape. Gaps are not just due to patches of fossil deposits getting
erroded away.

Look at the whale example. We have a strip of coastline where coastal
errosion and deposition were occurring from time to time, and some
sediments contained fossils of animals that lived along that coast when
those sediments were being deposited. It isn't a continuous record at
any one place. Those sediments were uplifted by India crashing into
Asia, and erosion has exposed some of the fossils. All the species that
evolved along the rest of the coast line are not avaliable for study.

Ron Okimoto

[JTEM]

Post by RonO

Post by Pro Plyd
https://phys.org/news/2024-08-darwin-unjustified-fossil-gaps-major.html
Darwin's fear was unjustified: Study suggests
fossil record gaps not a major issue

They're expected, would be shocking for them to not exist but they are
an issue... "Major?" Why not.

There's not exactly a lot of issues!

Dating is always one. People are forever arguing over dating.

What other issues are there?

Post by RonO
The simulation described in the paper is not realistic and likely
doesn't apply to terrestrial lifeforms.

Just look at climate models aka simulations? Nothing has got it right
in 50 years! There was a claim not to long ago that some software
from the 90s got everything right, only problem was that nobody is
saying, "Hey! Let's use this! It's accurate, unlike everything else,
so let's use this software!"

Yeah, sometime (often) the absence of evidence IS the evidence of
absence!

Sometimes.

Post by RonO
  Their conclusions likely are
not valid.  Erosion is not the main reason that there are gaps in the
fossil record.

True. But when you're getting into VERY old fossils it's a major issue.

It's even an issue for the Cambrian! I know it was a long time before
they discovered more fossil bearing deposits THAT old..

Post by RonO
  You need deposition to occur in order for the fossils to
be created, and deposition has to occur in the correct soils.

Water is the best. There's far more marine fossils than land animals.

Post by RonO
The
greatest species diversity occurs in equatorial rain forests, but those
forest soils dissolve bone.

But as long as they have lakes, rivers... Oo! River deltas are great
at preservation... though we're talking quantity not quality.

They suck at quality. You never find an articulated skeleton. You're
lucky it individual bones aren't broken!