Episode 164 - The ”Boring Billion”

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

Science, Education, Earth Sciences, Natural Sciences, Science:natural Sciences

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2023

⏱️ 109 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From roughly 1.8 – 0.8 billion years ago, things on Earth seemingly slowed down. The geologic record shows a conspicuous lack of evidence for major climatic, tectonic, or biological changes, a dramatic contrast to the tumultuous times before and after. In this episode, we explore this so-called “Boring Billion” and discuss what made it so unusual. Along the way, we’ll examine claims that there might have been more going on than we think, that this time might have been a critical step toward the modern state of our planet, and that this billion might not have been so boring after all. In the news: oldest bats, sauropod skulls, placoderm mouths, and feather-eating beetles. Time markers:Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00News: 00:05:45Main discussion, Part 1: 00:39:00Main discussion, Part 2: 01:08:15Patron question: 01:40:30 Listen to us on I Know Dino! https://iknowdino.com/sinotyrannus-episode-437/ Will was a guest on Sprites of Life!https://open.spotify.com/episode/7KmiNQcKWgpT6Nn0FRrMMp Check out our blog for bonus info and pictures:http://commondescentpodcast.com/ Join us on Patreon to support the podcast and enjoy bonus content! https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast Follow this link for a 30-day free trial to Audible!www.audibletrial.com/CommonDescent Or make a one-time donation via PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/4c68u4hp Find merch at the Common Descent Store! http://zazzle.com/common_descent Join the Common Descent Discord server! https://discord.gg/CwPBxdh9Ev Follow and Support us on:Twitter: https://twitter.com/CommonDescentPCFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/commondescentpodcastInstagram: @commondescentpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCePRXHEnZmTGum2r1l2mduwPodBean: https://commondescentpodcast.podbean.com/iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-common-descent-podcast/id1207586509?mt=2 You can email us at commondescentpodcast(at)gmail.comOr send us physical mail at:The Common Descent Podcast1735 W State of Franklin Rd. Ste 5 #165Johnson City, TN 37604 The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome.More music like this at http://ocremix.org. Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the Common Descent Podcast.
0:19.0	Hello, Will. Hello, David.
0:21.3	And hello everybody out there in listener land.
0:24.4	This is the Common Descent podcast, a podcast about paleontology, evolution, and the history of Earth and the life on it.
0:31.6	This is episode 164, and today's topic is the boring billion.
0:40.1	Yeah, just get your pillows ready.
0:42.1	This is a time period, a specific period of about a billion years during the
0:48.8	protozoic eon.
0:51.0	So we're going back into the Precambrian before the animals and all that stuff, familiar
0:56.7	stuff as we know it, a period of time that has been labeled the boring billion because it has
1:04.0	seemed to scientists for a while that a lot of stuff just kind of stopped happening during this
1:08.7	time.
1:09.3	And scientists are rude, so they called it boring.
1:11.8	Yes.
1:12.2	From life processes to earth processes, this interesting standstill time period in the protozoic.
1:20.2	This episode, we are going to discuss what's going to.
1:23.0	We're going to condense a billion years into a single episode discussion, as is the way that
1:28.7	we do these things.
1:29.6	Well, we've done more before.
1:30.7	We sure have.
1:31.7	We're going to talk about what this time period is, sort of set the stage, what was going
1:35.6	on before it, what was going on after it, and why it has been called boring.
	...

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