What is the Most Interesting Time Period to you?

[Zenmaster6]

I was curious about what peoples favorite Geologic Time period was. 

My favorites would have to be Early Cretaceous, because biodiversity was higher than previous times and we begin to see new life forms we might recognize today such as this 100 million year old bee I have.

My second favorite is probably the Early Permian, entire Carboniferous and later Devonian because amphibians, therapsids, reptiles, sharks and plant evolution.

(The chart below shows biodiversity.)

[Macrophyseter]

My most interested time periods are the Middle Cretaceous and Miocene.

[Wrangellian]

I am capable of appreciating fossils from all time periods and you need to see them all to understand the history of life, but I think the further back you go the more interesting it is because it gets more alien, more unlike the Present. That chart should not start at zero at the beginning of the Cambrian - there was a jump (at least in metazoans) in the Ediacaran, and who knows how much in microorganisms before that...

[Ludwigia]

@Zenmaster6 According to that chart, if I'm reading it correctly, Biodiversity is at its highest point by far in the present day. Is that really so? And if so, what's the big deal about protecting endangered species?

[DPS Ammonite]

57 minutes ago, Ludwigia said:

@Zenmaster6 According to that chart, if I'm reading it correctly, Biodiversity is at its highest point by far in the present day. Is that really so? And if so, what's the big deal about protecting endangered species

I wonder how biodiversity was measured. Most species are not preserved or cannot be assigned to a species in the past. Our large biodiversity today might be an overestimate relative to the biodiversity of the past. The large biodiversity of today might be an a result of our ability to differentiate species by color, habitat and DNA etc. A lot of our species today will never be preserved and identifiable species in the future. 

 

We seem to be eating a large part of our biodiversity into oblivion: krill crackers and then Soylent Green here we come.

 

[FranzBernhard]

On a worldwide basis, I would choose the Late Cretaceous. Very high diversity, everything was basically there (angiosperms, mammals), but many nowadays extinct groups (dinos, ammos) were still around and blooming.

 

On a local scale (Styria), I can not select one (Devonian, Triassic-Jurassic, Late Cretaceous, Miocen), each one is sooo different .

 

Franz Bernhard

[Bobby Rico]

It to hard to choose but I do really like the Permian amongst overs, this very  turbulent time even with the mass extinction that almost ended life on Earth as we know it. In my opinion had some of the most sublime creatures roaming the Permian landscapes. 

 

[connorp]

9 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

@Zenmaster6 According to that chart, if I'm reading it correctly, Biodiversity is at its highest point by far in the present day. Is that really so? And if so, what's the big deal about protecting endangered species?

From what I’ve been told, the apparent recent increase in biodiversity is very controversial. A few arguments I’ve heard as to why it’s artificially higher include much more exposed rock, and us having an easier time taxonomically resolving extant and/or familiar clades.

 

Edit: The effect is called the pull of the present for those interested.

[Tidgy's Dad]

The Ordovician for me is the most exciting, but anything Paleozoic and Pre-Cambrian is super. 

Not that I don't love and collect fossils from other times, I do, but the Ordovician Biodiversification Event and the Great Dying plus lots and lots of different brachiopods and trilobites really do it for me.  

[Zenmaster6]

Thanks for all the opinions

I did want to say, I had the same thought as @DPS Ammonite stated. Most of the things were never preserved so diversity may have been higher during periods we would never expect. However, I think the chart does show the diversity we CAN see in life and therefore I think there is more to study, even if we are missing a large portion of the picture.

@Tidgy's Dad and @Wrangellian I agree with you about appreciating all kinds of fossils, heck, I even appreciate the 1970's "fossils" from mount saint Helens. However both of you thought the older periods were more fascinating. I completely agree with that. Whenever I hold a trilobite or stromatolite, I imagine how when this creature was alive and biotic, the earth didn't even have a powerful O-Zone layer. Thanks for sharing.

@Bobby Rico The Permian is on my list of most interesting for sure. I like the idea of the proto design for land and water life back then, The time is old enough to seem alien but developed enough to be a world rich in creatures and things to study, also giving birth to proto mammals and therapsids. (which includes one of my favorite terrestrial creatures, moschops) I really like that you used the word turbulent. Thanks for sharing

@Ludwigia As some others say above, it is possible the graph on biodiversity is wrong, but I know people are sensitive about the topic of preservation of species, which is why I won't get into it too much, but I do know, during the Eocene when the earth had 7x more carbon dioxide, no ice caps and tropical forests that covered the globe, it seemed life flourished back then. So with the current situation in global warming, humans could possibly die off and many of our boreal and arctic creatures too (because the earth isn't gradually becoming warmer but rather much quicker). But if life, even if only one thing survived the Permian-Triassic extinction, I'm sure it can survive humans. Animal conservation, not too sure how I feel about it. Humans feel they have a responsibility for damaging and destroying the habitat of different species and driving them to extinction, whether we should or shouldn't protect those species, I probably will stay out of it.

[Al Tahan]

I’ll chime in and say I’m partial to the Devonian because I collect so much of it and I live around a lot of Devonian exposures. If I was closer to Cretaceous material I’m sure I’d have a different opinion  

[ynot]

11 hours ago, DPS Ammonite said:

krill crackers

AKA- modern shell less  "crab" meat.

 

As for favorite , I agree with the older the better. I like the "alien" or stranger looking things (like tully monsters and hallucigenia) that once walked this rock.

[Wrangellian]

9 hours ago, connorp said:

From what I’ve been told, the apparent recent increase in biodiversity is very controversial. A few arguments I’ve heard as to why it’s artificially higher include much more exposed rock, and us having an easier time taxonomically resolving extant and/or familiar clades.

 

Edit: The effect is called the pull of the present for those interested.

The Pull of the Present... interesting. The fact that more recent sediments remain than old sediments might be one factor in that.

I guess this is why our timescale tends to look logarithmic!

 

[doushantuo]

any period that lends itself to a multidisciplinary investigative approach

Example:

 

Adams grotzmccormiet al_Driedoornvlagte.PDF

DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION AND STRATIGRAPHIC EVOLUTION OF A MICROBIAL-DOMINATED,
ISOLATED CARBONATE PLATFORM (TERMINAL PROTEROZOIC, NAMA GROUP, NAMIBIA)

ERWIN W. ADAMS, STEFAN SCHRODER, JOHN P. GROTZINGER,DAVID S. MCCORMICK
JOURNAL OF SEDIMENTARY RESEARCH, VOL. 74, NO. 4, JULY, 2004, P. 479–497

 

[Wrangellian]

On 4/18/2019 at 12:39 PM, ynot said:

AKA- modern shell less  "crab" meat.

 

Is that what that fake crab meat is??

[Wrangellian]

On 4/18/2019 at 4:49 AM, Bobby Rico said:

It to hard to choose but I do really like the Permian amongst overs, this very  turbulent time even with the mass extinction that almost ended life on Earth as we know it. In my opinion had some of the most sublime creatures roaming the Permian landscapes.

The Permian was definitely weird. Pangea, the world dried out after the coal swamps, and all those weird vertebrates. Plus all kinds of inverts... all those spiny brachs, the last of the trilobites and tetracorals, etc.

The times before extinctions are interesting, being the last of an old world.. but also I find the times after extinctions are interesting in their own way, as the start of new worlds. Right after an extinction might be slim in diversity, but it's interesting to see what survived and would later diversify into what we see in younger strata and how quickly. The early Triassic and the Paleocene come to mind.

(Of course nearly every period qualifies by that criterion  - Ediacaran/Cambrian, Ordovician/Silurian, Devonian/Carboniferous, Permian/Triassic, Tri/Jurassic, Cretaceous/Paleogene.. and we're living in probably the next big extinction now!)

[trilobite tim]

My favorite would have to be whatever I am standing on at the moment.....  But as I spend most of my time in Cambrian rocks, that would be it.  I really enjoy collecting trilobites.  I'm afraid I have grown quite lazy in my old age.  Show me a Devonian plate and it is likely to be a hash of shells, corals, etc.  If there is a trilobite you have to look hard to find it!  Show me a Cambrian plate and it there is any fossil on it at all, it is  most likely a trilobite.  Fat and pretty, and all by itself.

 

When the Permian falls and the white winds blow, the lowly trilobite dies but the world survives.

[ynot]

On 4/20/2019 at 1:09 AM, Wrangellian said:

Is that what that fake crab meat is??

Yes, that and a healthy mix of plankton.

[siteseer]

On 4/18/2019 at 12:39 AM, DPS Ammonite said:

I wonder how biodiversity was measured. Most species are not preserved or cannot be assigned to a species in the past. Our large biodiversity today might be an overestimate relative to the biodiversity of the past. The large biodiversity of today might be an a result of our ability to differentiate species by color, habitat and DNA etc. A lot of our species today will never be preserved and identifiable species in the future. 

 

We seem to be eating a large part of our biodiversity into oblivion: krill crackers and then Soylent Green here we come.

 

 

A few years ago, I saw part of a Today show episode in which Salma Hayek was talking about people eating crickets in the future.  At that moment part of the western world was being introduced to eating insects (who remembers chocolate ants?) because far-seeing people are looking for alternative food sources for a human population that continues to grow and perhaps beyond a point beef, chicken, pork, and fish will be able to supply. 

 

I never saw Edward G. Robinson again after that movie.  Are we sure that's not a documentary?

[DPS Ammonite]

43 minutes ago, siteseer said:

I never saw Edward G. Robinson again after that movie.  Are we sure that's not a documentary?

Robinson died of cancer twelve days after the movie was finished shooting. Here is a clip from his slightly ironic euthanasia scene. It is very interesting to see the workers use what looks like a touchscreen tablet in a movie made in 1973, but depicting 2022.

 

 

[siteseer]

5 minutes ago, DPS Ammonite said:

Robinson died of cancer twelve days after the movie was finished shooting. Here is a clip from his slightly ironic euthanasia scene. It is very interesting to see the workers use what looks like a touchscreen tablet in a movie made in 1973, but depicting 2022.

 

 

 

Yeah, I remember it was his last movie.  Those were the good old days when twist endings were still a bit of a novelty and there wasn't a race to be the first spoiler.  Charlton Heston was in the two best movie twist endings, Planet of the Apes and Soylent Green.  He was also in the best Planet of the Apes movies.