Re: No island fossils

In article <fqs1vb$2gnl$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Lorentz wrote:
I recently saw a Discovery channel special where scientists
climbed a steep plateau near the Amazon river.

I suspect that you're thinking of the tepuis, which form part of
the watershed between the Amazon and Orinoco basins.

All sorts of radically
altered creatures lived on top of the plateau. Alas, no dinosaurs
which one was looking for. But these really odd spiders. Granite
chomping bacteria were found in a cave, forming silica stalactites.

Lots of unusual and endemic species for sure. I've not heard of
"granite chomping bacteria" though, nor "silica stalactites". There are
a modicum of reports of bacteria living in rocks, and caving literature
has reports of some pretty unusual bactrerially-mediated stalactites
(e.g. "snottites" found in places from Cheshire to Mexico). The
chemistry of silica in water isn't amenable to the formation of
stalactite-like forms, at least not by any process reasonably
comparable to the formation of "flowstone" in caves. Can you cite a
reference for this?

--
Aidan Karley,
Aberdeen, Scotland
Written at Sun, 09 Mar 2008 00:03 GMT, but posted later.
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