Re: Age Abstractions

[K and T Dykes <ktdykes@arcor.de>]

Whilst having a quick amble around this afternoon, I got to wandering and
wondering what sort of reaction would be reasonable, should somebody find an
unambiguous early Paleocene dino; perhaps a tin of ornithischian stewing
meat with a best before date or something.  For the while, I'm going to
assume friend Fassett really has hit the jackpot.  And, if it turns out
otherwise, then I hope he gets it with his next attempt.  Or the one after
that.  I want him to come up with one.

That way, I could learn what the significance might be.  After all, this
would actually be a rather stingy half-a-million year extension to the known
fossil record.  Half-a-million year extensions for taxa aren't exactly ten a
penny, but they rarely herald the dawns of brand new, sparkling paradigm
vacuum cleaners, to clean away the dust and cobwebs that conventional wisdom
and entrenched dogma models failed to suck in over the years.

One sentence of Fassett's abstract made most attractive reading, namely the
second in this snip.  The first is for context: "Now, with the discovery of
Paleocene dinosaurs, the paradigm of Cretaceous-only dinosaurs must shift.
Let us hope that this paradigm-shift will be a smooth and placid
lateral-slip along planar fault blocks rather than a grumbling, rumbling,
herky-jerky sliding of jagged-edged, opposing sides past each other."

It makes a perhaps half-a-million year taxon extension into an event to
remember, rather than just another like all the rest.