Session 4
The snow has disappeared leaving the rain.....hopefully not a deterrent to us hardy Geologists.
We didn't get as far as a planned discussion on how the shape of the world's land-masses has changed over geological time....
...so try this animation as a taster and we'll cover it properly next session.
The reason for our being distracted from the straight and narrow was the delivery of a batch of fossil handling specimens from Mandy Edwards, Curator at the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences of Manchester University. Mandy has given us permission to keep the fossils on hand for the time being so we can re-refer to them - brilliant!
Some of the earliest fossil evidence is still controversial. In five years' time maybe the debate will be resolved, but in the meantime this discussion of latest discoveries is useful.
The link also has an animation of the extremely high-resolution electronic scanning used to retrieve the fossils.
Ask yourself - if you wanted to challenge these findings, what's the obvious area of weakness......geology, or the interpretation of what a scanner 'sees'? Just a thought!
