试论化石证明生物进化的模糊性

化石是古生物存在的见证,是证明生物进化最直接、最重要材料。但又存在着许多模糊之处。本文根据古生物学和现代生物进化论的研究成就,就化石证明生物进化中存在的模糊问题进行了理论性阐述。     

甘肃和政古生物化石价值评价与地质公园发展建议

地质遗迹是珍贵的自然遗产,古生物化石是地质遗迹的重要类型。自2009年被批准建立和政古生物化石国家地质公园以来,经过几年的建设,和政古生物国家地质公园已经初具规模。在简要的介绍了和政古生物化石地质公园的概况和古生物化石的保护情况基础上,从科学研究价值、观赏价值、科普价值和旅游开发价值的角度对和政地质公园中的的古生物化石进行了价值评价,并对和政地质公园的发展提出了一些建议。     

中国北方新近系红土成因的古生物化石讨论

为进一步弄清楚中国北方新近系红土的沉积环境,从古生物的角度出发,针对天水-秦安一带新近系沉积地层中发现的大量古脊椎动物化石进行研究,结果发现:化石组合的典型特征是大量三趾马的存在,同时伴有大量的犀类及长鼻类化石,这一特点与临夏地区极为一致,表明至少在晚中世以前该地区气候还是相当湿润的,无法产生类似黄土的新近系风成红土沉积,这也同时得到邻近其它地区相关古生物证据的支持,古脊椎动物化石证据并不支持红土唯一风成的推论.图2,表1,参13.     

浅谈贵州古生物化石的保护

贵州拥有丰富的古生物化石资源,这些资源具有重要的科研价值,但是目前的保护利用中存在很多问题,本文在对贵州古生物化石资源保护与开发利用现状分析的基础上,提出了一些现实可行的保护建议,旨在实现贵州古生物化石资源的可持续利用。     

合肥教授绘出“古生物化石”地图

我省重要古生物化石资源有多少处？它们分别分布在什么地方？合肥工业大学刚刚诞生的我省首张“古生物化石资源分布”地图告诉你答案。     

资讯

21日本科学家在中国云南澄江挖掘发现的5.2亿年前远古生物化石拥有最早的完整神经系统,并证实了该生物是螯肢动物的祖先。     

莱阳白垩纪化石生物群

莱阳古生物发现与研究具有辉煌的历史迄今为止,在莱阳地区已经发现3个著名的白垩纪生物群,即早白垩世热河生物群、晚白垩世莱阳恐龙动物群和莱阳恐龙蛋化石群,这在我国乃至世界上其他地方是绝无仅有的。这些化石生物群都集中分布在莱阳五龙河流域,许多重要化石遗址都分布在城郊四周,如金刚口和将军顶等。1923年,我国第一代地质学家谭锡畴在山东莱阳采集了恐     

古生物化石的组合艺术

地球至今已有46亿年的发展历史。在30多亿年前,地球上出现生命,生物由此开始了由简单到复杂、由水生到陆生的漫长演变历程。保存在地层中的化石向我们展示了生命演化的历史。然而在漫长的地壳变迁过程中,绝大多数古生物没有形成化石,形成化石的仅仅是其中极少的一部分。据科学家们推测,大约每5千到1万个古生物遗体才能形成一件化石。古生物化石的组合艺术过去,古生物化石展示通常沿袭传统的古生物学分类,即按界、门、纲、目、科、属、种进行分类。用现在的眼光看,这种陈列形式显然已经比较落后了。如今,博物馆在展示内容上多采用“主题单元…     

中国古生物学会第26届学术年会在贵州关岭召开

2011年10月21～23日,中国古生物学会第26届学术年会在贵州省关岭布依族苗族自治县召开,本次会议的主题是“古生物科学研究与化石保护”。本次年会南中国古生物学会主办,中国卉生物化石保护基金会合作主办,贵州关岭自治县人民政府、中国科学院南京地质古生物研究所和贵州大学联合承办。来自全国各地高等院校、科研院所、博物馆等9...     

河南灵井许昌人遗址古人类化石及相关研究进展

 2007年和2014年，河南灵井遗址出土的距今10万年左右的许昌人头骨化石引起古人类学界的广泛关注，研究显示晚更新世早期中国境内可能并存多种古人类成员，不同群体之间有杂交或者基因交流产生。许昌人为中国古人类演化的地区连续性以及与欧洲古人类之间的交流提供了一定程度的支持。本文回顾了许昌人化石的发现历史、复原和研究过程，介绍了许昌人伴生的哺乳动物化石、石制品、骨质工具的最新研究进展；讨论了灵井遗址未来工作前景。许昌人化石及伴生的文化遗物为探讨当时人类的体质特征、行为方式及中国古人类的演化模式提供了重要的参考资料。     

New discoveries from the classic Quaternary mammalian fossil area of Yanjinggou, Chongqing, and their chronological explanations

Yanjinggou in Wanzhou District of Chongqing is one of the earliest reported and most famous Quaternary mammalian fossil areas in China. The fauna from this area used to be taken as a benchmark for the biochronological comparison of Quaternary paleontology of South China, but the chronology of this fauna has many controversies for the lack of exact locational and stratigraphical records. The present article, on the basis of recent investigations and discoveries, discusses and explains the distribution and biochronology of the mammalian faunas in the Yanjinggou area. The newly discovered Dayakou fissure fauna, including Rhizomys troglodytes, Homotherium sp., Panthera pardus, Stegodon orientalis, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, Hesperotherium sinense, Sus sp., Cervavitus fenqii, Cervus sp. and Muntiacus sp., is correlated to the middle Early Pleistocene. The presence of Early Pleistocene mammalian fauna in the Yanjinggou area is therefore confirmed. The “Wanhsien fauna” or “Yenchingkou (=Yanjinggou) fauna” as a Mid-Late Pleistocene biostratigraphical datum should be abandoned. The Dayakou fauna and the Upper Cave fauna of Pingba, both in the Yanjinggou area, are correlated to the middle Early Pleistocene and the early Middle Pleistocene in age, respectively.     

Earliest Homo.

The origin of our own genus, Homo, has been tentatively correlated with worldwide climatic cooling documented at about 2.4 Myr (million years). It has also been conjectured that members of Homo made the first stone tools, currently dated at 2.6-2.4 Myr. But fossil specimens clearly attributable to Homo before about 1.9 Myr have been lacking. In 1967 a fossil hominoid temporal bone (KNM-BC1) from the Chemeron Formation of Kenya was described as family Hominidae gen. et sp. indet. Although a surface find, its provenance within site JM85 (BPRP site K002) was established and a stratigraphic section provided indicating the specimen's position. This evidence has been affirmed but the exact age of the fossil was never determined, and the absence of suitable comparative hominid material has precluded a more definitive taxonomic assignment. Here we present 40Ar/39Ar age determinations on material from the hominid site indicating an age of 2.4 Myr. In addition, comparative studies allow us to assign KNM-BC1 to the genus Homo, making it the earliest securely known fossil of our own genus found so far.     

Extreme sexual dimorphism in a Miocene hominoid

Some Miocene hominoids may have been extremely sexually dimorphic for body size, inferred from the apparent dimorphism of dental and gnathic remains. But this has never been demonstrated convincingly for any fossil species because of small sample sizes, uncertainties about the number of species in most fossil samples, and the inability to reliably sex individual specimens. Here we demonstrate a case of extreme dental dimorphism, and presumed body-size dimorphism, in a Miocene hominoid sample in which these limitations have been overcome. Lufengpithecus lufengensis from the late Miocene site of Lufeng, China, was more dimorphic than the most dimorphic living hominoid, the orangutan, and may have been more dimorphic than any living anthropoid.     

Woody cover and hominin environments in the past 6 million years

The role of African savannahs in the evolution of early hominins has been debated for nearly a century. Resolution of this issue has been hindered by difficulty in quantifying the fraction of woody cover in the fossil record. Here we show that the fraction of woody cover in tropical ecosystems can be quantified using stable carbon isotopes in soils. Furthermore, we use fossil soils from hominin sites in the Awash and Omo-Turkana basins in eastern Africa to reconstruct the fraction of woody cover since the Late Miocene epoch (about 7 million years ago). (13)C/(12)C ratio data from 1,300 palaeosols at or adjacent to hominin sites dating to at least 6 million years ago show that woody cover was predominantly less than ～40% at most sites. These data point to the prevalence of open environments at the majority of hominin fossil sites in eastern Africa over the past 6 million years.     

Anthropology: the earliest toothless hominin skull

The site of Dmanisi in the Eurasian republic of Georgia has yielded striking hominin, faunal and archaeological material as evidence for the presence of early Homo outside Africa 1.77 million years ago, documenting an important episode in human evolution. Here we describe a beautifully preserved skull and jawbone from a Dmanisi hominin of this period who had lost all but one tooth several years before death. This specimen not only represents the earliest case of severe masticatory impairment in the hominin fossil record to be discovered so far, but also raises questions about alternative subsistence strategies in early Homo.     

Human presence in the European Arctic nearly 40,000 years ago.

The transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic, approximately 40,000-35,000 radiocarbon years ago, marks a turning point in the history of human evolution in Europe. Many changes in the archaeological and fossil record at this time have been associated with the appearance of anatomically modern humans. Before this transition, the Neanderthals roamed the continent, but their remains have not been found in the northernmost part of Eurasia. It is generally believed that this vast region was not colonized by humans until the final stage of the last Ice Age some 13,000-14,000 years ago. Here we report the discovery of traces of human occupation nearly 40,000 years old at Mamontovaya Kurya, a Palaeolithic site situated in the European part of the Russian Arctic. At this site we have uncovered stone artefacts, animal bones and a mammoth tusk with human-made marks from strata covered by thick Quaternary deposits. This is the oldest documented evidence for human presence at this high latitude; it implies that either the Neanderthals expanded much further north than previously thought or that modern humans were present in the Arctic only a few thousand years after their first appearance in Europe.     

Palaeogeography: Devonian tetrapod from western Europe

Several discoveries of Late Devonian tetrapods (limbed vertebrates) have been made during the past two decades, but each has been confined to one locality. Here we describe a tetrapod jaw of about 365 million years (Myr) old from the Famennian of Belgium, which is the first from western continental Europe. The jaw closely resembles that of Ichthyostega, a Famennian tetrapod hitherto known only from Greenland. The environment of this fossil provides information about the conditions that prevailed just before the virtual disappearance of tetrapods from the fossil record for 20 Myr.     

The oldest articulated chondrichthyan from the Early Devonian period

Chondrichthyans (including living sharks, skates, rays and chimaeras) have a fossil record of scales and dermal denticles perhaps dating back to the Late Ordovician period, about 455 million years ago. Their fossil tooth record extends to the earliest Devonian period, almost 418 million years ago, whereas the oldest known articulated shark remains date from the Early Devonian period, about 394 million years ago. Here we report the discovery of an articulated shark that is almost 409 million years old from the Early Devonian (early Emsian) period of New Brunswick, Canada. The specimen, identified as Doliodus problematicus (Woodward), sheds light on the earliest chondrichthyans and their interrelationships with basal jawed vertebrates. This species has been truly problematic. Previously known only from isolated teeth, it has been identified as an acanthodian and a chondrichthyan. This specimen is the oldest shark showing the tooth families in situ, and preserves one of the oldest chondrichthyan braincases. More notably, it shows the presence of paired pectoral fin-spines, previously unknown in cartilaginous fishes.     

中国城市清洁能源行动效益评估

煤炭在我国能源构成中的比例有所减少,但其主要地位仍未改变,化石燃料的使用与消耗,是构成环境污染的主要来源,我国许多城市的空气质量较差,严重威胁着城市的发展和人类的健康。“清洁能源行动”于2001年11月启动,并于2005年通过验收,清洁能源行动给试点城市带来了巨大变化,特别是对大气质量改善,改变了人们的生活环境质量,本文对清洁能源行动带给我们的社会方面的效益进行评价。     

古人类遗址桐梓岩灰洞的Th-230/U-234年龄

用 Th-230/U-234法测定了岩灰洞钟乳石结层和骨化石样品的年龄。划为第二层的钙板的年龄为21.4万年。先于钙板生成的岩灰洞堆积物的年龄应大于此值,因此应划为更新世中期,桐梓人应属直立人。