The history of life as revealed by the fossil record (with help from molecular phylogenies).

The Geologic and Evolutionary Record

• continental drift and
• the impact of asteroids.

Continental Drift

A body of evidence, both geological and biological, supports the conclusion that 200 million years ago, at the start of the Mesozoic era, all the continents were attached to one another in a single land mass, which has been named Pangaea.

This drawing of Pangaea (adapted from data of R. S. Dietz and J. C. Holden) is based on a computer-generated fit of the continents as they would look if the sea level were lowered by 6000 feet.

• Laurasia in the Northern Hemisphere and
• Gondwana in the Southern Hemisphere.

The present continents separated at intervals throughout the remainder of the Mesozoic and through the Cenozoic, eventually reaching the positions they have today.

Shape of the Continents

Geology

• In both mineral content and age, the rocks in a region on the east coast of Brazil match precisely those found in Ghana on the west coast of Africa.
• The low mountain ranges and rock types in New England and eastern Canada appear to be continued in parts of Great Britain, France, and Scandinavia.
• India and the southern part of Africa both show evidence of periodic glaciation during Paleozoic times (even though both are now close to the equator). The pattern of glacial deposits in the two regions not only match each other but also glacial deposits found in South America, Australia, and Antarctica.

Fossils

• Fossil reptiles found in South Africa are also found in Brazil and Argentina.
• Fossil amphibians and reptiles found in Antarctica are also found in South Africa, India, and China.
• Most of the marsupial alive today are confined to South America and Australia. But if these two continents were connected by Antarctica in the Mesozoic, one might expect to find fossil marsupials there. In March 1982, this prediction was fulfilled with the discovery in Antarctica of the remains of Polydolops, a 9-ft marsupial.

The Impact Hypothesis

The Alvarez Theory

Louis Alvarez, his son Walter, and their colleagues proposed that a giant asteroid or comet striking the earth some 65 million years ago caused the massive die-off at the end of the Cretaceous. Presumably, the impact generated so much dust and gases that skies were darkened all over the earth, photosynthesis declined, and worldwide temperatures dropped. The outcome was that as many as 75% of all species — including all dinosaurs — became extinct.

The key piece of evidence for the Alvarez hypothesis was the finding of thin deposits of clay containing the element iridium at the interface between the rocks of the Cretaceous and those of the Tertiary period (called the K-T boundary after the German word for Cretaceous). Iridium is a rare element on earth (although often discharged from volcanoes), but occurs in certain meteorites at concentrations thousands of times greater than in the earth's crust.

After languishing for many years, the Alvarez theory gained strong support from the discovery in the 90s of the remains of a huge (180 km in diameter) crater in the Yucatan Peninsula that dated to 65 million years ago.

The abundance of sulfate-containing rock in the region suggests that the impact generated enormous amounts of sulfur dioxide (SO₂), which later returned to earth as a bath of acid rain.

A smaller crater in Iowa, formed at the same time, many have contributed to the devastation. Perhaps during this period the earth passed through a swarm of asteroids or a comet and the repeated impacts made the earth uninhabitable for so many creatures of the Mesozoic.

Other Impacts?

A mass extinction of non-dinosaur reptiles occurred earlier, at the end of the Triassic. It was followed by a great expansion in the diversity of dinosaurs. The recent discovery of a layer enriched in iridium in rocks formed at the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic suggests that impact from an asteroid or comet may have been responsible then just as it was at the K-T boundary.

The largest extinction of all time occurred still earlier at the end of the Permian period. There is evidence off the coast of Australia that a huge impact there may have contributed to the extinctions at the Permian-Triassic (P-T) boundary.