Search for Evolution in Rhynie Chert Microfossils Is Rootless and Fruitless
A recent discovery of excellently preserved fossils at a
molecular level: Do they support evolution or creation?
by Jerry Bergman, PhD
A recent examination of a fossil collection called the “‘Rosetta Stone’ for understanding early life”[1] is being labeled “a world-renowned fossil hoard.” The reason is, evolutionists speculate, that the fossil “could offer vital clues about early life on earth.”[2] Evolutionists have also concluded that the fossil collection, found in rural northeast Scotland, is 400 million years old. Evolutionists are excited because these fossils have preserved remnants of life at the molecular level better than any previously found.
Although discovered in 1912, a new means of chemical analysis has motivated a new examination of the now over-a-century-old fossil find. Just as the Rosetta Stone helped Egyptologists translate the written Egyptian language of hieroglyphics into modern languages, evolutionists believe that the chemical analysis of these fossils can help them decipher much about the biology of early life-forms, such as the evolution of plant root design.
The Fossil Find
The Rhynie fossil ecosystem was found near the Aberdeenshire village of Rhynie in Scotland. It consists of mineralized biological material encased by a hard rock composed of silica, called chert. Cherts are altered siliceous sinters heated into a cohesive mass without melting. The heat source was believed to be hot springs and geysers similar to those in Yellowstone National Park.
The researchers used infrared light, analyzed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, to determine molecular structures within the cells, tissues, and organisms in the chert. Vibrational methods, such as FTIR microspectroscopy, are important tools used to investigate fossil organic matter.[3] They can discriminate between fungi, bacteria, and other life-forms by detecting differences in methyl, methylene, carbonyl, carboxyl, aromatic, and other moieties (molecular portions) in ancient, organic-fossilization products. These compounds vary, depending on the organic source, thereby shedding light both on the original composition of the precursor biomolecules. The analysis also can determine the pathways of chemical alteration that occurred during, and after, fossilization.
Figure 1. A slab of Rhynie chert. From Wikimedia Commons.
The Experimental Procedure Used
A total of 49 individual fossils from the Rhynie chert assemblage were analyzed using attenuated total reflectance (ATR) FTIR microspectroscopy. Differences between prokaryotic (cyanobacteria) and eukaryotic tissue were identified based on the fossilization products of lipids, sugars, and proteins. These organisms, found in Devonian and Silurian System sediments, have both algal and fungal characteristics.
The new findings indicate that the organisms were unlikely to have been either lichens or fungi as previously assumed, but instead a new organism.[4] The quick, non-invasive ATR method can be used to “discriminate between different life-forms, opening up a unique window on the diversity of early life on Earth.”[5] The research team then fed their data into a computer using an algorithm that attempted to classify the different organisms. Information learned from this data analysis provides the potential for sorting datasets from other fossil-bearing rocks. Problems with this method exist, including the fact that
affinities of extinct organisms are often difficult to resolve using morphological data alone. Chemical analysis of carbonaceous specimens can complement traditional approaches, but the search for taxon-specific signals in ancient, thermally altered organic matter is challenging and controversial, partly because suitable positive controls are lacking.[6]
Nonetheless, the microspectroscopy analysis can effectively separate the samples into eukaryotes and prokaryotes (cyanobacteria). The researchers are now working on multivariate statistics and machine-learning approaches that also can differentiate prokaryotes from eukaryotes, and discriminate eukaryotic tissue types in spite of the overwhelming influence of the silica (SiO2) in the chert. The research also demonstrated
that the famously exquisite preservation of cells, tissues and organisms in the Rhynie chert accompanies similarly impressive preservation of molecular information. These results provide a compelling positive control that validates the use of infrared spectroscopy to investigate the affinity of organic fossils in chert.[7]
Figure 2. A slab of Rhynie chert. From Wikimedia Commons.
This “exquisite preservation of cells, tissues and organisms” is especially impressive given the age that evolutionists assign to the fossils, namely 400 million years. One good possibility that explains their excellent preservation is that they are far younger, a possibility never considered in the discussions I reviewed about the fossil find. Nor was much discussion offered about how the 400 million-year date was arrived at, except noting that it was found in Devonian and Silurian System strata.
Not many other details are known about the site which was discovered in 1912 by geologist Dr. William Mackie. From 1910 to 1913 Mackie did extensive studies of the Rhynie area in Aberdeenshire and discovered many plant-bearing cherts.[8] Unfortunately, the details of exactly where and when the discovery was made were not recorded in the literature I consulted.
Evolutionary Motivations
One motivation for the research on the Rhynie Chert fossils is to obtain insight on how abiogenesis could occur. One supportive reason for this is that astropaleontological research relates to abiogenesis theory. The reason is there are similarities between the Rhynie area and the evolutionary assumptions about the early evolution of life on planets like Mars and Earth.[9] The remarkable level of preservation in the Rhynie chert (Figures 1 and 2) is well-supported and even extends to very fine cellular features and soft tissues.
The assumption was that, since the Rhynie area fossils should be more primitive than life on Earth today, they may help to determine some of the details of early biological evolution. However, support for this “more primitive life” conclusion, if any existed, was never detailed in the literature that I examined.
Support for Botanical Evolution Fails
Another motivation for the chert research was to support theories of botanical evolution. Failing to find evidence of evolution from one plant root-system into another, evolutionists proposed that there were at least two independent origins of roots among extant vascular plants.[10] The researchers write:
Mapping fossil traits onto the land plant phylogenetic framework indicates that there were at least two independent origins of roots among extant vascular plants — once in lycophytes and independently in euphyllophytes [Lycophytes, together with euphyllophytes (ferns and seed plants), are the only two surviving lineages after the divergence of vascular plants]. At least two rooting structural types are found among extinct species preserved in the Rhynie chert. First, species that lacked roots and developed horizontal axes that developed rhizoids. Second, the rooting axes of Asteroxylon mackiei resembled the roots of extant lycopsids but lacked root hairs and root caps.[11]
The rationale used to come to this conclusion includes the notion that
Roots are present in almost all extant vascular plants, but analysis of trait evolution suggests they are not a shared, ancestral, defining character (synapomorphy) of the vascular lineage. Multiple lines of evidence are consistent with the hypothesis that roots evolved at least twice independently among the vascular plants…. The predicted common ancestor of all extant vascular plants was rootless. This suggests that the development of roots is a derived trait evolving twice independently after the divergence of the lycophyte and euphyllophyte lineages.
Summary
The Rhynie chert fossil research not only found no clear evidence of root evolution from the less advanced to the more advanced design, but did, in fact, find a lack of evidence. This forced evolutionists to conclude that the primitive system did not evolve directly into the more-advanced system. They thus had to accept the rescue explanation that the two systems evolved separately. No evidence was found for a separate evolution, so belief in the Darwinian worldview obviously forced the researchers to adopt a backup rationale in an attempt to explain what evidence was found.
References
[1] University of Edinburgh. Fossil site is ‘Rosetta Stone’ for understanding early life. Science Daily, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230317144946.htm#, 17 March 2023.
[2] University of Edinburgh, 2023.
[3] Tewari, Anuradha, et al. Molecular signatures of kerogens and bitumens from the Lower Devonian Rhynie chert: Insights into the botanical affinity of the earliest land plants. 22nd EGU General Assembly, held online 4-8; id.18997https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2020EGUGA..2218997T/abstract, May 2020.
[4] Loron, C.C., et al. Molecular fingerprints resolve affinities of Rhynie chert organic fossils. Nature Communications 14(1387); DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-37047-1, 13 March 2023.
[5] Loron, C.C., et al. 2023.
[6] Loron, et al., 2023.
[7] Loron, et al., 2023.
[8] Trewin, Nigel. History of research on the geology and paleontology of the Rhynie area, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh 94(4):285-297. Published online by Cambridge University Press, 26 July 2007.
[9] Preston, Louisa J., and Matthew J. Genge. The Rhynie Chert, Scotland, and the search for life on Mars. Astrobiology 10(5):549–560, 12 July 2010.
[10] Hetherington, Alexander J., and Liam Dolan. Rhynie chert fossils demonstrate the independent origin and gradual evolution of lycophyte roots. Current Opinion in Plant Biology 47:119-126, February 2019.
[11] Hetherington and Dolan, 2019, p. 119.
Dr. Jerry Bergman has taught biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology for over 40 years at several colleges and universities including Bowling Green State University, Medical College of Ohio where he was a research associate in experimental pathology, and The University of Toledo. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Ohio, Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University. He has over 1,300 publications in 12 languages and 40 books and monographs. His books and textbooks that include chapters that he authored are in over 1,800 college libraries in 27 countries. So far over 80,000 copies of the 60 books and monographs that he has authored or co-authored are in print. For more articles by Dr Bergman, see his Author Profile.