The East Lake Turkana fossils available prior to 2010 were examined first-hand, while for the Olduvai and Lake Malawi fossils and KNM-ER 60000, 62000, and 62003 we relied on original observations on fossils and casts as well as published reports (Schrenk et al., 1993; Blumenschine et al., 2003; Leakey et al., 2012).
Darwin was a scientist and a ruthlessly inductive thinker who formulated his hypotheses over 25 years of painstaking observation of plants, animals and fossils.
Evolution is science's simplest explanation for observations of fossils and genetic structure.
This study relies upon observations and measurements taken from original fossils by the authors, observations taken from casts, and observations taken from the literature.
Geological field observations evidence that active and fossil Icelandic hydrothermal systems are typically embedded into an intercalation of almost completely altered and nearly unaltered volcanic rock layers.
Explain to students how the developmental modes of many marine snail groups can be determined from inspection of protoconchs (Fig. 2) and stress that it is possible to make such observations on both modern and fossil shells.
For this taxon we relied upon published reports (Johanson et al., 1982; Kimbel et al., 2004; Drapeau et al., 2005; Alemseged et al., 2006; Haile-Selassie et al., 2010; Ward et al., 2012), in addition to our own observations on original fossils and casts.
Also found in the Owl Rock are trace fossils of cylindrical burrows and fossils of ostracodes.
Observations on fossils from later periods contain well-documented examples of evolution of groups with non-planktonic life cycles in lineages with planktotrophic development, but apparently no examples of evolution in the opposite direction.
Although the fossil record provides a direct timescale for observations and contains explicit information about extinction, it is incomplete, and more robust at higher taxonomic levels.
