The History of the Earth, Evolution and its Fossils

Name: The History of the Earth, Evolution and its Fossils
Start: 2026-05-06T19:00:00-04:00
Location: 6908 Belair Rd, Baltimore, MD, United States, Maryland 21206

Schedule

Wed, 06 May, 2026 at 07:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

6908 Belair Rd, Baltimore, MD, United States, Maryland 21206 | Parkville, MD

The Earth has a long history, and for most of the time has supported life. We will probe the depths of geological time and how life evolved into its current state. Recent advances in microbiology have suggested that eukaryotic cells (those with nuclei) were a logical and even likely outgrowth of evolution in a group of prokaryotic cells (those without nuclei) known as the Asgard Archaea. The Cambrian explosion, while still important, was not the first eukaryotic biodiversity event. We’ll touch on the importance of extinction events in shaping evolutionary pathways. And get an idea of when and how these events took place. There will be a range of fossils displayed to complement the talk.
This presentation will be hybrid, in person and on Zoom. To receive the Zoom link, you need to register for the meeting. We encourage you to participate in person to get a first-hand experience with fossils.
Tom Farrell is an amateur fossil collector and a member of the NHSM Fossil Club as well as several other fossil clubs. He is a Maryland Master Naturalist, and his interest in the current world’s biodiversity extends into the deep past and how we got to this point. He has given several NHSM Fossil Club talks before on the fossils of the Pennsylvania anthracite fields and on beginner fossil preparation techniques.