The spark? Oh no. Going by how much Darwin emphasized fossil record, and what became of the result, you do well to think of it more as the very wood work that flamed the theory of evolution .
On the side, citing articles published in peer reviewed scientific journal would be more acceptable compared to media articles in a discuss of this nature
Refer - I will here only quickly scribble my thoughts.
Perhaps you didn't follow, I meant that "Fossil was the spark that drove in dept inquiry by other scientists after Darwin into the theory of evolution"
Well, perhaps this clarifies it.