Fossil Record
Perhaps the most ancient remains of Archaeplastida are microfossils from the Roper group in northern Australia. The structure of these single-celled fossils resembles that of modern green algae. They date to the Mesoproterozoic Era, about 1500 to 1300 Ma (million years ago). These fossils are consistent with a molecular clock study that calculated that this clade diverged about 1500 Ma. The oldest fossil that can be assigned to a specific modern group is the red alga Bangiomorpha, from 1200 Ma.
In the late Neoproterozoic Era, algal fossils became more numerous and diverse. Eventually, in the Paleozoic Era, plants emerged onto land, and have continued to flourish up to the present.
Read more about this topic: Archaeplastida
Famous quotes containing the words fossil and/or record:
“The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit,—not a fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one’s own soul. It is more fascinating than history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It is more delightful than philosophy, as its subject is concrete and not abstract, real and not vague. It is the only civilised form of autobiography.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)