Science. 1985 Mar 29;227(4694):1578-80. doi: 10.1126/science.227.4694.1578.
Six distinctive types of fossiliferous marine deposits occur on the Galádpagos Islands that provide evidence for the age of emergence of the islands above sea level and hence a maximum age for the islands' terrestrial biota. These subtidal to supratidal deposits include (i) volcanic tuffs with fossils, (ii) limestones and sandstones interbedded with basalt, (iii) terrace deposits, (iv) beach rock, (v) supratidal talus deposits, and (vi) recently uplifted tidal and subtidal rocks and sand. With the exception of (vi), the deposits were previously assigned ages varying from Miocene to Pleistocene, but all are less than about 2 million years old. This age, together with independently determined geologic ages, indicate that the islands emerged from the sea relatively recently and that all evolution of the islands' unique terrestrial biota occurred within the past 3 to 4 million years.
加拉帕戈斯群岛上有六种不同类型的有化石的海洋沉积物，这些沉积物为岛屿高出海平面的年代提供了证据，因此也为岛屿的陆地生物群的最大年龄提供了证据。这些潮下到潮上的沉积物包括：（i）有化石的火山凝灰岩；（ii）与玄武岩互层的石灰岩和砂岩；（iii）阶地沉积物；（iv）海滩岩；（v）潮上碎屑堆积；以及（vi）最近抬升的潮间带和潮下带岩石和沙子。除了（vi）之外，这些沉积物以前被分配的年龄从中新世到更新世不等，但都不到大约 200 万年。这个年龄，加上独立确定的地质年龄，表明岛屿是相对较新从海中升起的，而岛屿独特的陆地生物群的所有进化都发生在过去的 3 到 400 万年。
