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66-543: The name Paleozoic was first used by Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873) in 1838 to describe the Cambrian and Ordovician periods. It was redefined by John Phillips (1800–1874) in 1840 to cover the Cambrian to Permian periods. It is derived from the Greek palaiós (παλαιός, "old") and zōḗ (ζωή, "life") meaning "ancient life". The Paleozoic was a time of dramatic geological, climatic, and evolutionary change. The Cambrian witnessed

132-405: A fundamentalist or evangelical church, encloses a wide range of beliefs. During Sedgwick's life there developed something of a chasm between the conservative high church believers and the liberal wing. After simmering for some years, the publication of Essays and Reviews by liberal churchmen in 1860 pinpointed the differences. In all this, Sedgwick, whose science and faith were intertwined in

198-554: A natural theology , was definitely on the conservative side, and extremely outspoken about it. He told the February 1830 meeting of the Geological Society of London : As a geologist in the mid-1820s he supported William Buckland 's interpretation of certain superficial deposits, particularly loose rocks and gravel, as "diluvium" relating to worldwide floods, and in 1825 he published two papers identifying these as due to

264-647: A paraphyletic grouping, with the only valid members of Dicynodon being D. lacerticeps and D. huenei . A 2019 study named a new species D. angielczyki , but simultaneously transferred D. huenei to the genus Daptocephalus . Dicynodon was a medium-sized and advanced member of the Dicynodont group. It had an average length of 1.2 metres (3.9 ft), although size differed among species. Its fossil remains have been found in sediments of latest Permian age in South Africa and Tanzania. The type species

330-521: A "great irregular inundation" from the "waters of a general deluge", Noah's flood . Sedgwick's subsequent investigations and discussions with continental geologists persuaded him that this was problematic. In early 1827, after spending several weeks in Paris, he visited geological features in the Scottish Highlands with Roderick Murchison . He later wrote "If I have been converted in part from

396-406: A 136-page "letter," Popular Geology Subversive of Divine Revelation . He referred to Sedgwick's ideas as "unscriptural and anti-Christian," "scripture-defying", "revelation-subverting," and "baseless speculations and self-contradictions," which were "impious and infidel". While he became increasingly Evangelical with age, he strongly supported advances in geology against conservative churchmen. At

462-563: A cataclysm known as " The Great Dying ", the third and most severe Phanerozoic mass extinction. The early Cambrian climate was probably moderate at first, becoming warmer over the course of the Cambrian, as the second-greatest sustained sea level rise in the Phanerozoic got underway. However, as if to offset this trend, Gondwana moved south, so that, in Ordovician time, most of West Gondwana (Africa and South America) lay directly over

528-740: A co-trustee of the will of Ann Sill, an owner of slaves in plantations in Jamaica , in 1835 Sedgwick was awarded half of £3,783 in compensation for 174 slaves, following the abolition of slavery by the British government. Sedgwick is listed in the University College London database, Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave Ownership , as being an awardee in receipt of £3,783 1s 8d on 8 February 1836 for "174 Enslaved". He

594-535: A direct creative action smacked as materialistic and amoral. For Sedgwick, moral truths (the obtainment of which separates man from beast) were to be distinguished from physical truths, and to combine these or blur them together could only lead to disastrous consequences. In fact, one's own hope for immortality may ultimately rest on it. He stated in 1830 that scriptural geologists proposed "a deformed progeny of heretical and fantastical conclusions, by which sober philosophy has been put to open shame, and sometimes even

660-444: A foothold on land. These early plants were the forerunners of all plant life on land. During this time, there were four continents: Gondwana (Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, Siberia), Laurentia (North America), Baltica (Northern Europe), and Avalonia (Western Europe). The recent rise in sea levels allowed many new species to thrive in water. The Devonian spanned from 419–359 million years ago. Also known as "The Age of

726-673: A joint publication in which Roderick Murchison also proposed the Silurian period. Later in 1840, to resolve what later became known as the Great Devonian Controversy about rocks near the boundary between the Silurian and Carboniferous periods, he and Murchison proposed the Devonian period. Though he had guided the young Charles Darwin in his early study of geology and continued to be on friendly terms, Sedgwick

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792-602: A long preface to the 5th edition of his Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge (1850), including a lengthy attack on Vestiges and theories of development in general. Charles Darwin was one of his geology students in 1831, and accompanied him on a field trip to Wales that summer. The two kept up a correspondence while Darwin was on the Beagle expedition , and afterwards. However, Sedgwick never accepted

858-462: Is Dicynodon lacerticeps Owen, 1845. A large number of species have since been placed in this genus, some of which turned out to be synonyms of other species, others have been moved to different genera. Two species of Dicynodon are currently recognized: the type species D. lacerticeps from South Africa and the species D. angielczyki from Tanzania. Since the genus was first named, over 160 species have been assigned to Dicynodon . A 2011 study of

924-661: Is considered the first Phanerozoic mass extinction event, and the second deadliest. The Silurian spanned from 444–419 million years ago. The Silurian saw the rejuvenation of life as the Earth recovered from the previous glaciation. This period saw the mass evolution of fish, as jawless fish became more numerous, jawed fish evolved, and the first freshwater fish evolved, though arthropods, such as sea scorpions , were still apex predators . Fully terrestrial life evolved, including early arachnids, fungi, and centipedes. The evolution of vascular plants ( Cooksonia ) allowed plants to gain

990-457: Is deep in the mire of folly". If humanity broke this distinction it "would suffer a damage that might brutalize it—& sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history". In a letter to another correspondent, Sedgwick was even harsher on Darwin's book, calling it " utterly false " and writing that "It repudiates all reasoning from final causes; and seems to shut

1056-589: Is known for promoting uniformitarian geology Sedgwick talked of floods at various dates, then on 18 February 1831 when retiring from the Presidency of the Geological Society he recanted his former belief in Buckland's theory. He strongly believed that species of organisms originated in a succession of Divine creative acts throughout the long expanse of history. Any form of development that denied

1122-519: Is the sudden appearance of nearly all of the invertebrate animal phyla in great abundance at the beginning of the Cambrian. The first vertebrates appeared in the form of primitive fish, which greatly diversified in the Silurian and Devonian Periods. The first animals to venture onto dry land were the arthropods. Some fish had lungs, and powerful bony fins that in the late Devonian, 367.5 million years ago, allowed them to crawl onto land. The bones in their fins eventually evolved into legs and they became

1188-604: The Appalachians , Caledonides , Ural Mountains , and mountains of Tasmania . The Cambrian spanned from 539–485 million years ago and is the first period of the Paleozoic Era of the Phanerozoic. The Cambrian marked a boom in evolution in an event known as the Cambrian explosion in which the largest number of creatures evolved in any single period of the history of the Earth. Creatures like algae evolved, but

1254-530: The Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse . Gondwana was glaciated as much of it was situated around the south pole. The Permian spanned from 299–252 million years ago and was the last period of the Paleozoic Era. At the beginning of this period, all continents joined together to form the supercontinent Pangaea, which was encircled by one ocean called Panthalassa . The land mass was very dry during this time, with harsh seasons, as

1320-644: The Early Palaeozoic Icehouse , culminating in the Hirnantian glaciation, 445  million years ago at the end of the Ordovician. The middle Paleozoic was a time of considerable stability. Sea levels had dropped coincident with the ice age, but slowly recovered over the course of the Silurian and Devonian. The slow merger of Baltica and Laurentia, and the northward movement of bits and pieces of Gondwana created numerous new regions of relatively warm, shallow sea floor. As plants took hold on

1386-693: The River Clough , highlighting rock features and exploring the Dent Fault . Mount Sedgwick in British Columbia, Canada, was officially named after him in 1951. Dicynodon † D. lacerticeps Owen, 1845 ( type ) † D. angielczyki Kammerer, 2019 See below Dicynodon ("two dog-teeth") is a genus of dicynodont therapsid that flourished during the Upper Permian period . Like all dicynodonts, it

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1452-571: The South Pole . The early Paleozoic climate was strongly zonal, with the result that the "climate", in an abstract sense, became warmer, but the living space of most organisms of the time – the continental shelf marine environment – became steadily colder. However, Baltica (Northern Europe and Russia) and Laurentia (eastern North America and Greenland) remained in the tropical zone, while China and Australia lay in waters which were at least temperate. The early Paleozoic ended, rather abruptly, with

1518-585: The University of Cambridge in 1808 and his MA in 1811. On 20 July 1817 he was ordained a deacon, then a year later he was ordained as a priest. His academic mentors at Cambridge were Thomas Jones and John Dawson . He became a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and Woodwardian Professor of Geology at Cambridge from 1818, holding the chair until his death in 1873. His biography in the Cambridge Alumni database says that upon his acceptance of

1584-549: The coal beds of Europe and eastern North America . Towards the end of the era, large, sophisticated synapsids and diapsids were dominant and the first modern plants ( conifers ) appeared. The Paleozoic Era ended with the largest extinction event of the Phanerozoic Eon , the Permian–Triassic extinction event . The effects of this catastrophe were so devastating that it took life on land 30 million years into

1650-565: The 1830s. The investigations into the Devonian meant that Sedgwick was involved with Murchison in a vigorous debate with Henry De la Beche , in what became known as the great Devonian controversy. He also employed John William Salter for a short time in arranging the fossils in the Woodwardian Museum at Cambridge, and whom accompanied the professor on several geological expeditions (1842–1845) into Wales. Sedgwick investigated

1716-537: The Fish", the Devonian featured a huge diversification of fish, including armored fish like Dunkleosteus and lobe-finned fish which eventually evolved into the first tetrapods. On land, plant groups diversified rapidly in an event known as the Devonian explosion when plants made lignin , leading to taller growth and vascular tissue; the first trees and seeds evolved. These new habitats led to greater arthropod diversification. The first amphibians appeared and fish occupied

1782-655: The Mesozoic Era to recover. Recovery of life in the sea may have been much faster. The base of the Paleozoic is one of the major divisions in geological time representing the divide between the Proterozoic and Phanerozoic eons, the Paleozoic and Neoproterozoic eras and the Ediacaran and Cambrian periods. When Adam Sedgwick named the Paleozoic in 1835, he defined the base as the first appearance of complex life in

1848-609: The Middle Carboniferous). An important evolutionary development of the time was the evolution of amniotic eggs , which allowed amphibians to move farther inland and remain the dominant vertebrates for the duration of this period. Also, the first reptiles and synapsids evolved in the swamps. Throughout the Carboniferous, there was a cooling trend, which led to the Permo-Carboniferous glaciation or

1914-628: The Palaeozoic had very few facultatively motile animals that could easily adjust to disturbance, with such creatures composing 1% of its assemblages in contrast to 50% in Cenozoic faunal assemblages. Non-motile animals untethered to the substrate, extremely rare in the Cenozoic, were abundant in the Palaeozoic. Palaeozoic phytoplankton overall were both nutrient-poor themselves and adapted to nutrient-poor environmental conditions. This phytoplankton nutrient poverty has been cited as an explanation for

1980-428: The Palaeozoic's relatively low biodiversity. Adam Sedgwick Adam Sedgwick FRS ( / ˈ s ɛ dʒ w ɪ k / ; 22 March 1785 – 27 January 1873) was a British geologist and Anglican priest, one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Cambrian and Devonian period of the geological timescale . Based on work which he did on Welsh rock strata , he proposed the Cambrian period in 1835, in

2046-459: The Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras and the Permian and Triassic periods is marked by the first occurrence of the conodont Hindeodus parvus . This is the first biostratigraphic event found worldwide that is associated with the beginning of the recovery following the end- Permian mass extinctions and environmental changes. In non-marine strata, the equivalent level is marked by the disappearance of

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2112-658: The Permian Dicynodon tetrapods . This means events previously considered to mark the Permian-Triassic boundary, such as the eruption of the Siberian Traps flood basalts , the onset of greenhouse climate, ocean anoxia and acidification and the resulting mass extinction are now regarded as being of latest Permian in age. The GSSP is near Meishan , Zhejiang Province, southern China. Radiometric dating of volcanic clay layers just above and below

2178-463: The Sedgwick Prize to be given every third year for the best essay on some geological subject. The first Sedgwick Prize was awarded in 1873 and has continued into the 21st century. To celebrate the bicentenary of Sedgwick's birth a geological trail was created near Dent, the village where he was born and developed his passion for geology (amongst other things). The Sedgwick Trail follows

2244-673: The September 1844 British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting at York he achieved national celebrity for his reply defending modern geology against an attack by the Dean of York , the Reverend William Cockburn , who described it as unscriptural. The entire chapter house of the cathedral refused to sit down with Sedgwick, and he was opposed by conservative papers including The Times , but his courage

2310-528: The Silurian Period, about 420 million years ago, when they began to transition onto dry land. Terrestrial flora reached its climax in the Carboniferous, when towering lycopsid rainforests dominated the tropical belt of Euramerica . Climate change caused the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse which fragmented this habitat, diminishing the diversity of plant life in the late Carboniferous and Permian periods. A noteworthy feature of Paleozoic life

2376-539: The arguments in Vestiges was akin to falling from grace and away from God's favour. He lashed out at the book in a letter to Charles Lyell, bemoaning the consequences of it conclusions. "...If the book be true, the labours of sober induction are in vain; religion is a lie; human law is a mass of folly, and a base injustice; morality is moonshine; our labours for the black people of Africa were works of madmen; and man and woman are only better beasts!" Later, Sedgwick added

2442-546: The basal Cambrian Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) at the base of the Treptichnus pedum assemblage of trace fossils and immediately above the last occurrence of the Ediacaran problematica fossils Harlaniella podolica and Palaeopsacichnus . The base of the Phanerozoic, Paleozoic and Cambrian is dated at 538.8+/-0.2 Ma and now lies below both the first appearance of trilobites and SSF. The boundary between

2508-521: The book, but the subject kept recurring and he then read it carefully and made a withering attack on the book in the July 1845 edition of the Edinburgh Review . Vestiges "comes before [its readers] with a bright, polished, and many-coloured surface, and the serpent coils a false philosophy, and asks them to stretch out their hands and pluck the forbidden fruit", he wrote in his review. Accepting

2574-511: The boundary confine its age to a narrow range of 251.902+/-0.024 Ma. The beginning of the Paleozoic Era witnessed the breakup of the supercontinent of Pannotia and ended while the supercontinent Pangaea was assembling. The breakup of Pannotia began with the opening of the Iapetus Ocean and other Cambrian seas and coincided with a dramatic rise in sea level. Paleoclimatic studies and evidence of glaciers indicate that Central Africa

2640-567: The case for evolution made in On the Origin of Species in 1859 any more than he did that in Vestiges in 1844. In response to receiving and reading Darwin's book, he wrote to Darwin saying: Sedgwick regarded natural selection as He emphasised his distinction between the moral and physical aspects of life, "There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this

2706-417: The charities of life have been exposed to violation." In 1834 he continued, "They have committed the folly and SIN of dogmatizing," having "sinned against plain sense," and "of writing mischievous nonsense," "Their eyes cannot bear to look upon" truth and suppose an "ignorant and dishonest" theory. They show "bigotry and ignorance," of nature's laws and natural phenomena. Henry Cole then responded in 1834 in

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2772-511: The climate of the interior of Pangaea was not regulated by large bodies of water. Diapsids and synapsids flourished in the new dry climate. Creatures such as Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus ruled the new continent. The first conifers evolved, and dominated the terrestrial landscape. Near the end of the Permian, however, Pangaea grew drier. The interior was desert, and new taxa such as Scutosaurus and Gorgonopsids filled it. Eventually they disappeared, along with 95% of all life on Earth, in

2838-561: The continental margins, oxygen levels increased and carbon dioxide dropped, although much less dramatically. The north–south temperature gradient also seems to have moderated, or metazoan life simply became hardier, or both. At any event, the far southern continental margins of Antarctica and West Gondwana became increasingly less barren. The Devonian ended with a series of turnover pulses which killed off much of middle Paleozoic vertebrate life, without noticeably reducing species diversity overall. There are many unanswered questions about

2904-521: The diluvian theory...it was...by my own gradual improved experience, and by communicating with those about me. Perhaps I may date my change of mind (at least in part) from our journey in the Highlands, where there are so many indications of local diluvial operations.... Humboldt ridiculed [the doctrine] beyond measure when I met him in Paris. Prévost lectured against it." In response to Charles Lyell 's 1830 publication, Principles of Geology , which

2970-561: The door on any view (however feeble) of the God of Nature as manifested in His works. From first to last it is a dish of rank materialism cleverly cooked and served up". Despite this difference of opinion, the two men remained friendly until Sedgwick's death. In contrast to Sedgwick, liberal church members (who included biologists such as George Rolleston , William Henry Flower and William Kitchen Parker ) were usually comfortable with evolution. As

3036-507: The empty continent of Gondwana. By the end of the Ordovician, Gondwana was at the south pole, early North America had collided with Europe, closing the intervening ocean. Glaciation of Africa resulted in a major drop in sea level, killing off all life that had established along coastal Gondwana. Glaciation may have caused the Ordovician–Silurian extinction events , in which 60% of marine invertebrates and 25% of families became extinct, and

3102-557: The end of the Permian period. In late middle Permian the pareiasaurs originated, successful herbivores and the only sauropsids that could reach sizes comparable to some of the largest synapsids. The Palaeozoic marine fauna was notably lacking in predators relative to the present day. Predators made up about 4% of the fauna in Palaeozoic assemblages while making up 17% of temperate Cenozoic assemblages and 31% of tropical ones. Infaunal animals made up 4% of soft substrate Palaeozoic communities but about 47% of Cenozoic communities. Additionally,

3168-520: The energy of Professor T. McK. Hughes (successor to Sedgwick) the new building, termed the Sedgwick Museum , was completed and opened in 1903. In 1865, the University of Cambridge received from A. A. Van Sittart the sum of 500 pounds sterling "for the purpose of encouraging the study of geology among the resident members of the university, and in honour of the Rev. Adam Sedgwick". Thus was founded

3234-461: The first tetrapods, 390  million years ago , and began to develop lungs. Amphibians were the dominant tetrapods until the mid-Carboniferous, when climate change greatly reduced their diversity, allowing amniotes to take over. Amniotes would split into two clades shortly after their origin in the Carboniferous; the synapsids, which was the dominant group, and the sauropsids . The synapsids continued to prosper and increase in number and variety till

3300-574: The horrors of slavery". The Sedgwick Club , the oldest student-run geological society in the world, was set up in honour of him in 1880. On the death of Sedgwick it was decided that his memorial should take the form of a new and larger museum. There was brief, later discarded, talk of opening a Sedgwick youth summer programme. Hitherto the geological collections had been placed in the Woodwardian Museum in Cockerell's Building. Through

3366-548: The late Paleozoic. The Mississippian (early Carboniferous Period) began with a spike in atmospheric oxygen, while carbon dioxide plummeted to new lows. This destabilized the climate and led to one, and perhaps two, ice ages during the Carboniferous. These were far more severe than the brief Late Ordovician ice age; but, this time, the effects on world biota were inconsequential. By the Cisuralian Epoch, both oxygen and carbon dioxide had recovered to more normal levels. On

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3432-502: The majority of Ediacaran to Cambrian rock sequences are composed of siliciclastic rocks where skeletal fossils are rarely preserved. This led the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) to use trace fossils as an indicator of complex life. Unlike later in the fossil record, Cambrian trace fossils are preserved in a wide range of sediments and environments, which aids correlation between different sites around

3498-434: The most rapid and widespread diversification of life in Earth's history, known as the Cambrian explosion , in which most modern phyla first appeared. Arthropods , molluscs , fish , amphibians , reptiles , and synapsids all evolved during the Paleozoic. Life began in the ocean but eventually transitioned onto land, and by the late Paleozoic, great forests of primitive plants covered the continents, many of which formed

3564-602: The most ubiquitous of that period were the armored arthropods, like trilobites. Almost all marine phyla evolved in this period. During this time, the supercontinent Pannotia begins to break up, most of which later became the supercontinent Gondwana. The Ordovician spanned from 485–444 million years ago. The Ordovician was a time in Earth's history in which many of the biological classes still prevalent today evolved, such as primitive fish, cephalopods, and coral. The most common forms of life, however, were trilobites, snails and shellfish. The first arthropods went ashore to colonize

3630-520: The other hand, the assembly of Pangaea created huge arid inland areas subject to temperature extremes. The Lopingian Epoch is associated with falling sea levels, increased carbon dioxide and general climatic deterioration, culminating in the devastation of the Permian extinction. While macroscopic plant life appeared early in the Paleozoic Era and possibly late in the Neoproterozoic Era of the earlier eon, plants mostly remained aquatic until

3696-540: The phenomena of metamorphism and concretion , and was the first to distinguish clearly between stratification , jointing , and slaty cleavage . He was elected to Fellow of the Royal Society on 1 February 1821. In 1844, he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He was president of the Geological Society of London . The Church of England , by no means

3762-533: The position, Sedgwick had no working knowledge of geology. An 1851 portrait of Sedgwick by William Boxall hangs in Trinity's collection. Sedgwick studied the geology of the British Isles and Europe. He founded the system for the classification of Cambrian rocks and with Roderick Murchison worked out the order of the Carboniferous and underlying Devonian strata. These studies were mostly carried out in

3828-400: The rock record as shown by the presence of trilobite -dominated fauna. Since then evidence of complex life in older rock sequences has increased and by the second half of the 20th century, the first appearance of small shelly fauna (SSF), also known as early skeletal fossils, were considered markers for the base of the Paleozoic. However, whilst SSF are well preserved in carbonate sediments,

3894-477: The short, but apparently severe, late Ordovician ice age. This cold spell caused the second-greatest mass extinction of the Phanerozoic Eon. Over time, the warmer weather moved into the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician and Silurian were warm greenhouse periods, with the highest sea levels of the Paleozoic (200 m above today's); the warm climate was interrupted only by a 30 million year cool period,

3960-552: The top of the food chain. Earth's second Phanerozoic mass extinction event (a group of several smaller extinction events), the Late Devonian extinction , ended 70% of existing species. The Carboniferous is named after the large coal deposits laid down during the period. It spanned from 359–299 million years ago. During this time, average global temperatures were exceedingly high; the early Carboniferous averaged at about 20 degrees Celsius (but cooled to 10 °C during

4026-520: The world. Trace fossils reflect the complexity of the body plan of the organism that made them. Ediacaran trace fossils are simple, sub-horizontal feeding traces. As more complex organisms evolved, their more complex behaviour was reflected in greater diversity and complexity of the trace fossils they left behind. After two decades of deliberation, the ICS chose Fortune Head , Burin Peninsula, Newfoundland as

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4092-404: Was an herbivorous animal. This synapsid was toothless, except for prominent tusks, hence the name. It probably cropped vegetation with a horny beak, much like a tortoise, while the tusks may have been used for digging up roots and tubers. Many species of Dicynodon have been named, and the genus is considered a wastebasket taxon . A 2011 study of the genus found most of the species to represent

4158-530: Was an opponent of Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection . He strongly opposed the admission of women to the University of Cambridge, in one conversation describing aspiring female students as "nasty forward minxes." Sedgwick was born in Dent , Yorkshire , the third child of an Anglican vicar. He was educated at Sedbergh School and Trinity College, Cambridge . He studied mathematics and theology, and obtained his BA (5th Wrangler ) from

4224-608: Was hailed by the full spectrum of the liberal press, and the confrontation was a key moment in the battle over relations between Scripture and science. When Robert Chambers anonymously published his own theory of universal evolutionism as his "development hypothesis" in the book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation published in October 1844 to immediate popular success, Sedgwick's many friends urged him to respond. Like other eminent scientists he initially ignored

4290-539: Was most likely in the polar regions during the early Paleozoic. The breakup of Pannotia was followed by the assembly of the huge continent Gondwana ( 510  million years ago ). By the mid-Paleozoic, the collision of North America and Europe produced the Acadian-Caledonian uplifts, and a subducting plate uplifted eastern Australia . By the late Paleozoic, continental collisions formed the supercontinent of Pangaea and created great mountain chains, including

4356-483: Was one of 46,000 people paid compensation during the abolition of slavery in the United Kingdom. A liberal Whig in politics, Sedgwick had long been a passionate supporter of abolition. In a letter to Bishop Wilberforce, dated July 16, 1848, Sedgwick wrote of signing a petition against the slave trade while he was a child—the first "political act of [his] life"—after his father had shown him "ugly pictures of

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