Talk:Boring Billion

[Untitled]

Need evidence for last sentence in 'Cellular Features' subsection. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bkoenker (talk • contribs) 23:05, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Make sure to insert figures and/or remove "(Figure __)" from text. (Brian!) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bkoenker (talk • contribs) 23:12, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

When we made our page live, someone else referred us to the Wikipedia style manual and said references go after punctuation, not before. A bot went through and changed it all for us, but that's just an FYI! Huynhsa (talk) 18:14, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Whoops, wrong link for the style manual. This is the correct one to the Wikipedia Manual of Style! Huynhsa (talk) 18:38, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

What about a transition sentence or two between the "low oxygen" section and the sub-sections on the different hypotheses so it is clear what those sub-sections are about? Kowalskm (talk) 01:23, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Confusing sentences

This sentence was confusing: "A consequence of the limited breakup history is the paucity of passive margins during the time period from 1.8 to 0.8 Ga[16]." It would be helpful to know why this statement may be relevant to the subject of the Boring Billion. Burrighj (talk) 18:40, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

I would consider rewording the sentence that has "precluded the absence of glaciation" to be more clear. Kowalskm (talk) 01:23, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Reorganization

I realized that a reorganization of the First Eukaryotes section would strengthen this part of the article a lot. I won't be changing the meaning of the content, just adding to it and reorganizing it. Here's the plan:

Earth's First Eukaryotes (heading)

Steps Required in Eukaryotic Evolution (subheading) (some of this is also covered on the Eukaryotes wiki page though)

DNA Reorganization

Acquisition of Organelles (advanced cytoskeleton allowed cells to eat others, leading to the acquisition of mitochondria and chloroplasts)

Appearance of sexual reproduction

Diversificaton of Eukaryotes (heading)

Multicellular Eukaryotes (subheading) (the evolution ofcell polarity allowed cells to "talk" to each other in multicellular animals)

First Algae

First Fungi

First Terrestrial Life (subheading)

Proto-Lichens

KatieKoalas (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:06, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Boring Billion/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: AhmadLX (talk · contribs) 16:34, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

I will do this soon. AhmadLX-(Wikiposta) 16:34, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Misc.

• The article and sources state that O2 levels dropped. But the image (Evolution Of Atmosferic Oxygen.svg) shows a constant O2 concentration following GOE. I think it is inconsistent with the text. Shouldn't it be removed/replaced?

removed graph   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:56, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

• Multicellular eukaryotes had probably evolved about 2–1.4 Gya, [they are?] thought to be the descendants of colonial unicellular aggregates. OR "Multicellular eukaryotes, thought to be the descendants of colonial unicellular aggregates, had probably evolved about 2–1.4 Gya"?

fixed   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:56, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

• Mitochondria had already evolved in the Great Oxygenation Event, but plastids used in plants for namely[?] photosynthesis are thought to have appeared about 1.6–1.5 Gya.

plastids are used for more than just photosynthesis   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:56, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

• "Canfield said that oceanic SO42− reduced all the iron in the anoxic deep sea, as opposed to oxygen as previously supposed." said → has argued?

that works too I guess   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:56, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

• "indicated by δ13C levels to have been loss of 10 to 20 times the current volume of atmospheric oxygen" To me, it seems hard to comprehend. Should be clarified.

"to have been a loss"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:56, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Sources & verifiability

• I could not find the term "Boring Billions" in the cited source (Brasier, M. D.; Lindsay, J. F. (1998)).

That's the wrong source. I'm actually not sure where and when he coined it. I saw one news article referencing sound bytes, so I think maybe in a conference at some point in time, and I have a 2006 journal which is the earliest published mention of the term "boring billion" that I can find (but Brasier is credited with coining the term).   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:16, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

• "Low nutrient abundance may have caused increased photosymbiosis..." Source (Brasier, M. D.; Lindsay, J. F. (1998)) states: "Remarkable and prolonged stability of the carbon cycle,...major phosphorites, or mass extinctions, suggest that nutrient stability and P limitation nurtured these photosymbioses...". I am no expert in this, so could you please elaborate how the former can be derived, without much OR, from the latter?

"P depletion is a major factor in obligate associations between photosymbionts and host cells" basically because the nutrients eukaryotic life requires were not abundant enough, these creatures needed to turn to other manners of obtaining them (photosymbiosis), and Brasier specifically narrows in on P as a limiting nutrient in this source   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:16, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

• I could not find the term "Barren Billions" in the cited source (Williams, G. E. (2005)).

I think that was there before I started, and I trusted it, which was a mistake. It was actually Young 2013; I think it got there because Young said "with the possible exception of sub-glacial meltwater channels and glaciofluvial deposits (ca. 1.8 Ga) described by Williams (2005) from Western Australia"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:16, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

• "The evolution of Earth's biosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere has long been linked to the supercontinent cycle, where the continents aggregate and then drift apart" is not in Evans, D. A. D. (2013). Roberts, N. M. W. (2013) should be added here.

One of Evan's big ideas is how the supercontinent cycle affects the Earth, such as "a supercontinent cycle is generally invoked to explain a number of global-scale phenomena in the long-term geologic record", "there may be a link between supercontinents and the global seawater"; also added Roberts   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  14:13, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

• Boenigk, Jens; Wodniok, Sabina; Glücksman, Edvard (2015-03-31) [46] needs page number.

added   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:56, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

• Lenton, T.; Watson, A. (2011) is actually a chapter named "The not-so-boring billion" in "Revolutions that made the Earth". It should be formatted accordingly (like [15] and [60]).

added chapter title   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:56, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

• Ref. [2] (Brasier 2012, p. 211) should be formatted like other book refs.

done   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:56, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Images

• "File:Oxygen During the Boring Billion.png": I couldn't find where does the source state that the image is CC BY-SA 4.0
• "File:Timeline showing the Boring Billion.png": Link to the source needed.

The same person uploaded both of those image in 2016 so I asked him/her. I'll take both images down until I get a response   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:16, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Pass. A nice and informative article. Great work. AhmadLX-(Wikiposta) 19:30, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Eukaryotes

The eukaryotes section currently states

According to phylogenetic analysis, plants diverged from animals and fungi about 1.6 Ga; animals and fungi about 1.5 Ga; Bilaterians and cnidarians (animals respectively with and without bilateral symmetry) about 1.3 Ga; sponges 1.35 Ga; and Ascomycota and Basidiomycota (the two divisions of the fungus subkingdom Dikarya) 0.97 Ga.

I find this, particularly the middle part about the diversification of animals, very difficult to believe. I suspect this is a molecular clock analysis, but haven't had a chance to read the linked paper yet. In any case, even if they've hit on something besides just the molecular clock system, this should be weighed against the more common view that we have no evidence of any of these groups of animals before about 550 million years ago, and that the Ediacaran fossils, from around 600 million years ago, have nothing resembling bilaterians, sponges, or cnidarians as we know them ; .... one animal does look faintly like a jellyfish, and some others are bilterally symmetric, but as explained at urbilaterian, the term bilateria means a lot more than just an animal that has left and right sides. —Soap— 12:55, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Okay., so it looks like the paper is indeed a molecular clock analysis, and they state in the introduction that they know their time estimates are way off from what the fossil record suggests, and that the reason for the disagreement is the use of different methodologies. I will add a sentence to the article later that makes these points both clear.

I also note that our article currently omits the paper's mention that the most recent common ancestor of protostomes and deuterostomes (which is also the MRCA of arthropods and vertebrates, terms that will surely be more familiar to most readers) lived around 978 million years ago. This claim, especially if worded to mention arthropods and vertebrates, is to me much harder to believe than even the other things that caught my eye at first. Privately, I can see how cnidaria and bilateria might have split at an extremely early date, provided that both groups remained functionally identical microscopic wormlike animals for hundreds of millions of years, breathing and perhaps even eating through their skin, and not evolving their distinctive characteristics until they grew much larger. But a split between protostomes and deuterostomes at 978mya is much harder to explain, since the presumed MRCA should have been a sizable animal that would have left fossils, and we have no fossils, not even in the Ediacaran age when some quite large animals had appeared.

I dont think there's any need for us to remove the paper entirely, but it should definitely be clear to readers that the claims the authors are making are against the common opinion and have no fossil evidence. —Soap— 14:24, 13 January 2023 (UTC)