Scientists at The Australian National University (ANU) have found that independent estimates from geology and biology agree on the timing of the breakup of the Pangaea supercontinent into today's continents.

When continents break up, single species are divided into two and drift apart - physically and genetically.

Lead researcher Sarah McIntyre said geologic dating of the continental drift and biological dating of the genetic drift provided independent estimates of the break-up dates over the past 180 million years.

"This is by far the most comprehensive comparison of genetic tree-based dates and the geological dates of the continental breakups," said Ms McIntyre, a PhD scholar at the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

"After excluding species that could easily move between continents, a new comparison of these two independent dating methods, applied to the breakup of Pangaea over the past 180 million years, finds good agreement between the two methods.

"Geological dating provides important independent support for the relatively new field of using genetic trees to date biological divergences."

The research is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: http://rspb.?royalsocietypublishing.?org/?content/?284/?1856/?20170716

"In collaboration with biologist Professor Colin Groves, we came up with a vetting procedure that excluded species that could easily migrate from one continent to another," Ms McIntyre said.

Co-author Associate Professor Charley Lineweaver said as genetic sequence data accumulates, dates from biology are becoming increasingly robust.

"Our original goal was to quantify how long continents had been isolated from each other, to see if some species would evolve into the hypothetical 'intelligence niche'," said Dr Lineweaver from the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Research School of Earth Sciences at ANU.

"Along the way, we had to verify if geological and biological dating methods agree. We found that they do."

"This concordance between biology and geology gives phylogenetic dating more street cred," Dr Lineweaver said.

Dr Lineweaver said the result was only the tip of the iceberg of what can be done with all the new sequence data and the divergence dates that can be extracted.

Research paper

Tweet

Paleontologists find Cretaceous-era baby bird trapped in amber
Washington (UPI) Jun 8, 2017
Scientists have discovered the remains of a Cretaceous-era baby bird inside a piece of 99-million-year-old amber. The amber fossil was found in Myanmar and purchased by scientists from local amber hunters. The baby bird became trapped in tree sap just a few days after hatching. The resin hardened into amber, preserving roughly roughly half of the tiny bird, including its neck bones, cla ... read more

Related Links
Australian National University
Explore The Early Earth at TerraDaily.com

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The Space Media Network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceMediaNetwork Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceMediaNetwork Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only