This Topical Study developed from considering that the phrase “may be found” and other proddings would make a good list for researching how new discoveries and scientific advances increasing support Urantia Book history, for more UBtheNEWS reports. In addition to the hoped for success of this effort, I also discovered information that seems related to a relatively new topic for consideration—whether the revelators were permitted to anticipate science at least up to around the time of publication in 1955.
Some balance must exist between the teachings at 101:4.2—“We are not at liberty to anticipate the scientific discoveries of a thousand years … [and] forbidden to include … undiscovered facts in the revelatory records”—with 101:4.7, where the reasons for the revelation include, “The co-ordination of known or about-to-be-known facts and observations.” Maybe around 20 years of anticipation was allowed?
(58:7.1): Early Surface Fossils.
(59:3.7): Arctic Fossils.
(59:4.13)
(59:6.6): Coal/Glacial Deposits.
(60:3.14)
(61:6.4): Caves w/ Topic, Arctic, and Human fossils.
(61:7.16)
(64:2.6): Early Migration to Britain Report.
(64:3.4)
(77:5.10)
(78:7.7)
(58:7.1) The vast group of rock systems which constituted the outer crust of the world during the life-dawn or Proterozoic era does not now appear at many points on the earth’s surface. And when it does emerge from below all the accumulations of subsequent ages, there will be found only the fossil remains of vegetable and early primitive animal life. Some of these older water-deposited rocks are commingled with subsequent layers, and sometimes they yield fossil remains of some of the earlier forms of vegetable life, while on the topmost layers occasionally may be found some of the more primitive forms of the early marine-animal organisms. In many places these oldest stratified rock layers, bearing the fossils of the early marine life, both animal and vegetable, may be found directly on top of the older undifferentiated stone.
From Wiki on Reg Sprigg:
Sprigg was sent by the South Australian Government in 1946 to inspect abandoned mines in the Ediacara Hills, to ascertain whether old mines could be reworked profitably using new technologies. When he discovered the fossils, apparently while eating his lunch, he realised that they were very ancient, either of Early Cambrian, or possibly even of Precambrian age. He thought that the organisms had probably been jellyfishes. He submitted a paper to the journal Nature, but it was rejected. He travelled to London and presented his findings to the 1948 International Geological Congress, but failed to excite either interest or belief. Subsequent work by Prof Martin Glaessner at the University of Adelaide demonstrated that they were indeed of latest Precambrian age. Although Precambrian animal fossils had been reported before, they had not been accepted universally as organic. This discovery resulted ultimately in the definition in 2004 of the Ediacaran period, the first new geological period created in more than one hundred years.
Could it be that “may be found” is used because in 1935 it would be inappropriate to say “have been found?”
(59:3.7) The oceanic climate remained mild and uniform, and the warm seas bathed the shores of the polar lands. Brachiopod and other marine-life fossils may be found in these deposits right up to the North Pole. Gastropods, brachiopods, sponges, and reef-making corals continued to increase.
AI commentary:
Brachiopod fossils have been discovered as far north as the high Arctic, just hundreds of miles from the North Pole. Because these regions are now frozen, barren expanses, discovering marine fossils there provided crucial historical evidence that the Arctic was once a warm, shallow, tropical ocean.
The two most notable “far north” discovery regions are:
- Peary Land, North Greenland (Latitude ~82°N)
This is the northernmost tip of Greenland and one of the closest landmasses to the North Pole.
• The Discovery Dates: Major paleontological expeditions in the 1980s and 1990s—notably led by British paleontologist Simon Conway Morris and John Peel—uncovered highly significant, exquisitely preserved early Cambrian brachiopods in North Greenland’s Holm Dal and Bastion formations.
• Significance: These are some of the oldest and furthest-north brachiopods ever found, dating back over 500 million years. Researchers discovered ancestral stem-group brachiopods (Mickwitzia) alongside other rare, armored “pick and mix” Cambrian creatures that linked brachiopods to early mollusks.
(59:4.13) The earth was being rapidly overrun by the new orders of land vegetation. Heretofore few plants grew on land except about the water’s edge. Now, and suddenly, the prolific fern family appeared and quickly spread over the face of the rapidly rising land in all parts of the world. Tree types, two feet thick and forty feet high, soon developed; later on, leaves evolved, but these early varieties had only rudimentary foliage. There were many smaller plants, but their fossils are not found since they were usually destroyed by the still earlier appearing bacteria.
(59:4.14) As the land rose, North America became connected with Europe by land bridges extending to Greenland. And today Greenland holds the remains of these early land plants beneath its mantle of ice.
(59:6.6) Gradually the inland lakes and seas were drying up all over the world. Isolated mountain and regional glaciers began to appear, especially over the Southern Hemisphere, and in many regions the glacial deposit of these local ice formations may be found even among some of the upper and later coal deposits. Two new climatic factors appeared—glaciation and aridity. Many of the earth’s higher regions had become arid and barren.
Q: Are there coal deposits in the southern hemisphere that contain pockets of glacial deposits. If so, when and where were they discovered?
AI commentary:
Yes, southern hemisphere coal deposits—particularly from the Permian period in the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana—frequently interfinger and associate with glacial deposits (such as tillites and glacio-fluvial layers).Where They Are Found
- Australia: Coal-bearing strata (such as in New South Wales and Queensland) and glacial layers closely interleave, showing that plant life thrived near glacial margins.
- Southern Africa: Karoo Supergroup sequences across South Africa, Zimbabwe, and neighboring countries contain Early-to-Late Permian coal associated with glacial and cold-climate records.
- South America, India, and Antarctica: Similar Late Carboniferous to Permian glacial and coal-bearing sequences (like the Dwyka/Karoo equivalents or Gondwana sequences) span these regions.
When and How They Were Discovered
• Time Period of Formation: These deposits formed during the Late Carboniferous to Permian periods (roughly 300 million years ago) during the Gondwanan glaciation.
• Discovery and Historical Recognition: The close association of polar/glacial evidence (like striated bedrock and tillites) with organic coal beds in the southern hemisphere was recognized by early geologists and played a central role in Alfred Wegener’s theory of continental drift in the early 20th century (with key syntheses like Alex du Toit’s Our Wandering Continents in 1937). Rather than single “pockets” of ice dropped into coal, the strata represent alternating climatic shifts or polar-tundra peat bogs growing right at the edge of retreating and advancing ice sheets.
(60:3.14) 70,000,000 years ago the crustal distortions connected with the maximum elevation of the Rocky Mountain region took place. A large segment of rock was overthrust fifteen miles at the surface in British Columbia; here the Cambrian rocks are obliquely thrust out over the Cretaceous layers. On the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, near the Canadian border, there was another spectacular overthrust; here may be found the prelife stone layers shoved out over the then recent Cretaceous deposits.
(61:6.4) Human beings were not present in the Western Hemisphere until near the close of the ice age. But during the interglacial epochs they passed westward around the Mediterranean and soon overran the continent of Europe. In the caves of western Europe may be found human bones mingled with the remains of both tropic and arctic animals, testifying that man lived in these regions throughout the later epochs of the advancing and retreating glaciers.
Cave of the Chair (Grotte de la Chaise) in France is an example. However, it is important to note that rhinos were considered a tropical animal in 1935 and 1955. More recently, rhinos tend to get classified as being from the temperate zone. And France is not considered to have had a tropical climate. There is a difference between what is considered to have a tropical climate (past or present) vs. what is considered a tropical animal. For instance, hippos are classified as tropical and their bones have been found in Great Britain, considerably further north than France.
(61:7.16) The enforced migration of life before the advancing ice led to an extraordinary commingling of plants and of animals, and with the retreat of the final ice invasion, many arctic species of both plants and animals were left stranded high upon certain mountain peaks, whither they had journeyed to escape destruction by the glacier. And so, today, these dislocated plants and animals may be found high up on the Alps of Europe and even on the Appalachian Mountains of North America.
(64:2.6) Though the remains of the Foxhall peoples were the last to be discovered in England, these Andonites were really the first human beings to live in those regions. At that time the land bridge still connected France with England; and since most of the early settlements of the Andon descendants were located along the rivers and seashores of that early day, they are now under the waters of the English Channel and the North Sea, but some three or four are still above water on the English coast.
See the UBtheNEWS: Early Migration to Britain Report.
(64:3.4) To the east of the Badonan peoples, in the Siwalik Hills of northern India, may be found fossils that approach nearer to transition types between man and the various prehuman groups than any others on earth.
(77:5.10) This center of civilization was situated in the region east of the southern end of the Caspian Sea, near the Kopet Dagh. A short way up in the foothills of Turkestan are the vestiges of what was onetime the Adamsonite headquarters of the violet race. In these highland sites, situated in a narrow and ancient fertile belt lying in the lower foothills of the Kopet range, there successively arose at various periods four diverse cultures respectively fostered by four different groups of Adamson’s descendants. It was the second of these groups which migrated westward to Greece and the islands of the Mediterranean. The residue of Adamson’s descendants migrated north and west to enter Europe with the blended stock of the last Andite wave coming out of Mesopotamia, and they were also numbered among the Andite-Aryan invaders of India.
(78:7.7) The remnants of this, one of the oldest civilizations, are to be found in these regions of Mesopotamia and to the northeast and northwest. But still older vestiges of the days of Dalamatia exist under the waters of the Persian Gulf, and the first Eden lies submerged under the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea.