[Taxacom] How old?

[Kenneth Kinman]

John,

       That article is not really accurate.  It was proposed back in 2003 (an article in Nature) that they had found fossil spores of the earliest land plants which were dated to 475 million years ago.   So 500 million years ago based on molecular data isn't much different from 475 million years ago based on fossil spores.  Needless to say these dates are somewhat controversial, but they certainly are not 100 million years apart.

Weblink to the 2003 article in Nature:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01884


                      ------------------------Ken


________________________________
From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> on behalf of John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2018 11:24 AM
To: taxacom
Subject: [Taxacom] How old?

In relation to Ken's recent objections about gaps being too big, here's a
whoppa:

"Now, new research suggests the first land plants began taking root 500
million years ago, 100 million years earlier than scientists thought. Until
now, scientists used the oldest known land plant fossils, roughly 420
million years old, to date their arrival on Earth's continents. In the
latest study, scientists used molecular clock analysis to more accurately
pinpoint the origin of the earliest land plants.
https://www.upi.com/Land-plants-are-older-than-scientists-thought/2731519132728/


So, these molecular theorists propose an origin that requires land plants
to have stuck around for at least 100 Ma with no fossil record.

John Grehan
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