Doctor Who and the Key to Deep Time | Susannah Lydon

Time-travel would be a useful tool for palaeontologists, but Doctor Who has already explained some of the fossil record for us

Every palaeontologist wants a time machine. The tantalising, scrappy bits of biology that survive in the fossil record are a tiny fraction of what I could find out from a quick field trip to the Cretaceous. I've got my list prepared of the first four or five trips I'll make when such technology becomes widely available. And being forty-something and British, there's one time machine that's been a constant in my life: the Tardis.

Doctor Who has explored ideas in evolution and the fossil record many times. Old school fans will be happy to explain how the origins of life of Earth are not in hydrothermal vents in the deep oceans four billion years ago, but were actually triggered by Scaroth, last of the Jagaroth, taking off in his faulty spaceship which promptly exploded, causing a cascade of new organic molecules to form.