I’m having a hard time thinking of some natural or accidental process that would destroy it. Volcano, asteroid, and A-bomb are all I’ve come up with. [This was before I’d looked up the temperature of magma.] Like, if it just got left out in the rain and the sun forever, woul...
any more than we would regard detailed knowledge of bacterial biochemistry or the partitioning of minerals in a magma chamber to be significant general knowledge. (Indeed, these latter two items are actually far more critical for human society than any specific aspect of paleontology, and so from...
Understanding and appreciating the nitty gritty details of the phylogeny and anatomy of any particular branch of the Tree of Life are not really necessary for everyone to know, any more than we would regard detailed knowledge of bacterial biochemistry or the partitioning of minerals in a magma cha...