Friday, July 11, 2008

Need Another Paper

Phanerozoic Trends in the Global Diversity of Marine Invertebrates
John Alroy, Martin Aberhan, David J. Bottjer, Michael Foote, Franz T. Fürsich, Peter J. Harries, Austin J. W. Hendy, Steven M. Holland, Linda C. Ivany, Wolfgang Kiessling, Matthew A. Kosnik, Charles R. Marshall, Alistair J. McGowan, Arnold I. Miller, Thomas D. Olszewski, Mark E. Patzkowsky, Shanan E. Peters, Loïc Villier, Peter J. Wagner, Nicole Bonuso, Philip S. Borkow, Benjamin Brenneis, Matthew E. Clapham, Leigh M. Fall, Chad A. Ferguson, Victoria L. Hanson, Andrew Z. Krug, Karen M. Layou, Erin H. Leckey, Sabine Nürnberg, Catherine M. Powers, Jocelyn A. Sessa, Carl Simpson, Adam Tomasovych, and Christy C. Visaggi
Science 4 July 2008: 97-100.
A compilation of more than 3 million specimens of fossil marine invertebrates shows that their diversity increased more in the Jurassic and less since then than an earlier study implied.


They built their own DB of marine fossils. It differs from other attempts, including the Seposki DB, in that they counted more than the first and last instances of a fossil: they counted frequency over time as well. They also had a very interesting contention in a press release:

The data are also interesting, Alroy said, because they document that there have been only three truly major mass extinctions in the fossil record.


Soooo....can anyone get me the paper? I don't seem to have access to Science.

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