Page 30 - Atlas of Creation Volume 1

Under How Many Distinct Groups Are Fossils Studied?

Just as with the living species, fossils too are studied under sections referred to as "kingdoms." In

the 19th century, fossils were grouped together under two basic categories: either plants or animals.
Subsequent research and discoveries made it necessary for other main fossil groups to be established,
including for life forms such as fungi and bacteria. Under the fossil classification developed in 1963,

fossils began to be studied in the form of five separate kingdoms:
1. Animalia – fossils from the animal kingdom, of which the oldest known specimens date back 600
million years.
2. Plantae – fossils from the plant kingdom, of which the oldest known specimens date back 500
million years.

3. Monera – fossils of bacteria with no nucleus, the oldest known specimens dating back 3.9 billion
years.
4. Protoctista – fossils of single-celled organisms. The oldest known specimens date back 1.7 billion

years.
5. Fungi – fossils of multi-celled organisms, of which the oldest known specimens date back 550
million years.

Geological Periods and Paleontology

The first basic information regarding the Earth's crust began to be acquired in the late 18th and
early 19th centuries, during the buildings of railways and tunnels. William Smith, a British tunnel

builder, saw that there were rocks along the North Sea coast similar to those unearthed in Somerset
during building work that dated back to the Jurassic period (206 to 144 million years ago). With the
rock and fossil specimens he collected from one end of the country to the other, Smith produced the

Some fossil samples
collected by William Smith.

Upper
Carboniferous Triassic
Period Period

Jurassic
Lower Period
Carboniferous
Period
Middle
Jurassic
Period
Gastropod
Two-shelled

The first maps drawn by William
Smith, the founder of British
geology, contributed greatly to the
development of modern geology.

28 Atlas of Creation