Crises in the History of Life
Crises in the History of Life
复制标题
生命史上的危机
DOI：
10.1038/scientificamerican0263-76
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发表时间：
1963
影响因子：
3
通讯作者：
N. D. Newell
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
N. D. Newell
自从大约三四十亿年前地球上的生命之流起源以来，它一直是连续不断的。然而，过去生命的化石记录并不是单一进化生物体的简单年表。记录主要是不稳定的，经常是突然的环境变化，不同的进化速度，灭绝和重新繁殖。不同的生物以一种接力的方式相互替换。伴随不断的环境变化而来的是大规模灭绝、迅速迁徙以及由此造成的地方和世界范围内生物平衡的破坏。地球历史的主要书籍和章节——年代、时期和纪元——在数千万年甚至数亿年的时间里都是由具有特征的动物和植物群体主导的。然后，经过多年的有序进化和生物上的成功，许多群体突然灭绝了。这些大规模物种灭绝的原因仍然很有疑问，这构成了进化史上的一个主要问题。18世纪末和19世纪初伟大的法国博物学家乔治·居维叶男爵（Baron Georges Cuvier）将分层化石记录中生物群落的消失和更替的惊人事件称为革命。居维叶并不认为这些事件通常与不整合相对应，即由于侵蚀而在地层中形成的裂缝，而是将它们归因于突然而猛烈的灾难。这一观点是他对巴黎地区地层的研究产生的。对面网页上的历史图表是居维叶在近150年前绘制的。它代表了海相和非海相含化石岩石的简单交替，在化石序列中有许多侵蚀断裂和明显的中断。反对居维叶的灾难论
The stream of life on earth has been continuous since it originated some three or four billion years ago. Yet the fossil record of past life is not a simple chronology of uniformly evolving organisms. The record is prevailingly one of erratic, often abrupt changes in environment, varying rates of evolution, extermination and repopulation. Dis similar biotas replace one another in a kind of relay. Mass extinction, rapid mi gration and consequent disruption of biological equilibrium on both a local and a world-wide scale have accompa nied continual environmental changes. The main books and chapters of earth history-the eras, periods and epochs were dominated for tens or even hun dreds of millions of years by character istic groups of animals and plants. Then, after ages of orderly evolution and bio logical success, many of the groups sud denly died out. The cause of these mass extinctions is still very much in doubt and constitutes a major problem of evo lutionary history.The striking episodes of disappear ance and replacement of successive biotas in the layered fossil record were termed revolutions by Baron Georges Cuvier, the great French naturalist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Not ing that these episodes generally corre spond to unconformities, that is, gaps in the strata due to erosion, Cuvier attrib uted them to sudden and violent catastro phes. This view grew out of his study of the secluence of strata in the region of Paris. The historic diagram on the oppo site page was drawn by Cuvier nearly 150 years ago. It represents a simple alternation of fossil-bearing rocks of marine and nonmarine origin, with many erosional breaks and marked interrup tions in the sequence of fossils. The objection to Cuvier's catastro-