"Vendozoa" & Lichens, Etc.?

[James Hagadorn <hagadorn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings:

I completely agree with John... its time to stop 'lurking' and time to start
chatting about science. Any of you folks out there care to discuss Greg
Retallack's recent article in Paleobiology?  Am rather surprised that
such a "controversial" and fascinating article hasn't been burning up
bandwidth here on paleonet. This article has stirred up quite a bit of
discussion among paleo-types here at SC...unfortunately, don't know
enough about lichens and the like to comment in detail...

Anyone out there on the net care to take up (or take down) the
hypotheses suggested in this article?  After having just
heard varying accounts of these forms from Bill Schopf and Dolf
Seilacher... am not sure what to believe ... 

If lots of folks found this article interesting, but hard to swallow,
I'd love to hear your suggestions for reading material (including
contrasting opinions) and/or see your comments here.


Whitey Hagadorn
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Dept of Earth Sciences
U. of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0740
email: hagadorn@usc.edu			...surfing waves and the internet...
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