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Protists Described In 1984
A protist ( ) or protoctist is any eukaryotic organism that is not an animal, land plant, or fungus. Protists do not form a natural group, or clade, but are a paraphyletic grouping of all descendants of the last eukaryotic common ancestor excluding land plants, animals, and fungi. Protists were historically regarded as a separate taxonomic kingdom known as Protista or Protoctista. With the advent of phylogenetic analysis and electron microscopy studies, the use of Protista as a formal taxon was gradually abandoned. In modern classifications, protists are spread across several eukaryotic clades called supergroups, such as Archaeplastida (photoautotrophs that includes land plants), SAR, Obazoa (which includes fungi and animals), Amoebozoa and "Excavata". Protists represent an extremely large genetic and ecological diversity in all environments, including extreme habitats. Their diversity, larger than for all other eukaryotes, has only been discovered in recent decades thro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paleoproterozoic
The Paleoproterozoic Era (also spelled Palaeoproterozoic) is the first of the three sub-divisions ( eras) of the Proterozoic eon, and also the longest era of the Earth's geological history, spanning from (2.5–1.6 Ga). It is further subdivided into four geologic periods, namely the Siderian, Rhyacian, Orosirian and Statherian. Paleontological evidence suggests that the Earth's rotational rate ~1.8 billion years ago equated to 20-hour days, implying a total of ~450 days per year. It was during this era that the continents first stabilized. Atmosphere The Earth's atmosphere was originally a weakly reducing atmosphere consisting largely of nitrogen, methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide and inert gases, in total comparable to Titan's atmosphere. When oxygenic photosynthesis evolved in cyanobacteria during the Mesoarchean, the increasing amount of byproduct dioxygen began to deplete the reductants in the ocean, land surface and the atmosphere. Eventually all surf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
