The possibility that the Avalon Platform, where the Avalonian lithotectonic belt is best developed, was involved in late Paleozoic displacement was tested by paleomagnetic study of red sandstones of the Upper Devonian Terrenceville Formation of eastern Newfoundland. Two magnetization directions were identified by thermal demagnetization analysis of 60 oriented samples from 10 sites: a high bloc...

This special issue is based on a theme session convened at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America held in Denver, Colorado, in October 2004. The theme session brought together a diverse group of scientists interested in the chemistry of Precambrian and Paleozoic oceans and its role in climatic and evolutionary events. The contributors to this issue make use of a wide range of i...

To understand how extant viruses interact with their hosts, we need a historical framework of their evolutionary association. Akin to retrovirus or hepadnavirus viral fossils present in eukaryotic genomes, bracoviruses are integrated in braconid wasp genomes and are transmitted by Mendelian inheritance. However, unlike viral genomic fossils, they have retained functional machineries homologous ...

Both the gradual rise in atmospheric oxygen over the Proterozoic Eon as well as episodic fluctuations in oxygen over several million-year time spans during the Phanerozoic Era, have arguably exerted strong selective forces on cellular and organismic respiratory specialization and evolution. The rise in atmospheric oxygen, some 2 billion years after the origin of life, dramatically altered cell ...

The evolution of Earth's atmosphere is extreme importance to the lithosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. This particularly true for role biosphere played in inceptual formation atmospheric oxygen, subsequently its potential higher life forms. Quantifying change oxygen with geologic time extremely challenging, redox sensitive isotope element models subject contradictory outcomes. Here, we presen...