The Ediacaran Fauna Essay

The author and his colleagues specifically chose to focus on 375 million year old rocks in their search for fossils because this was the time frame that provided fish that would be useful to study from. The 385 million year old rocks provided fish that look too similar to the ones we have now and the 365 million year old rocks have fossils that don’t resemble fish. The 375 million year old rocks, however, provide fossils that show the transition between fish and land living animals.

The oldest fossil was the microfossils known to be found in Australia by a group from the University of Western Australia and Oxford University. The tiny fossils showed credible indication for cells and bacteria living in an oxygen free world over 3.4 billion years ago.

During the Cambrian Period there was an explosion of life forms. Most of these were in the water. Many animals with no backbones lived in the shallow seas. These animals were invertebrates.

1. Neil Shubin, author of Your Inner Fish, and his colleagues travel to Ellesmere Island to look for and study the shift from fish living in water to creatures living on land (4). Fossils from 360 million years ago include amphibians and reptiles. Fossils 385 million years old, only fish are found. Because of this, Shubin and his colleagues look at the time in the middle of this, 375 million years ago (10). In 2004, they give it another try, after failed previous tries (21). What gradually emerges from the rocks they searched for in the bottom of the quarry is an “intermediate” right between fish and land animals, Tiktaalik, “large freshwater fish” (22-25).

The facts are in you can identify an anglefish by .that anglefish can grow from 6 to 24 inches long they get their name from their beauty and grace, marine anglefish are common in Florida and the Caribbean. Some anglefish masked like the emporer anglefish and young marine anglefish they both have vertical stpes on them, the regal anglefish is color- crazed including the half moon anglefish, blue anglefish, and the rocky beauty, the young french anglefish will let divers come closely to them so that they can show off their pretty colors,fersh water anglefish live in slow moving waters they grow to six inches long they look ghost like. To identify a sea goblin look for their pink ugly unappling skin it looks like an alien but with

Evidence  for  life  on  early  Earth  (e.g.  in  the  Pre Cambrian)  has  proved  difficult  to  find  because: SELECT  ALL  THAT  APPLY Select  one  or  more: A.  rocks  from  these  early  times  are  rare  due to  the  recycling  of  the  Earth's  crust  through plate  tectonics   B.  there  was  no  oxygen  in  the  Earth's atmosphere  at  this  time C.  life  at  this  time  lacked  hard  parts  (such as  shells  or  bones)  that  fossilise  easily   D.  life  had  not  yet  emerged  onto  land E.  life  at  this  time  was  mostly  microbial

Could not explain the Cambrian explosion, all life forms appeared or disappeared, completely formed totally devoid of transitions.

<b>Introduction</b><br>Think of a world which existed 290 million years ago. As you look out over the terane in front of you, you think that you are on an alien planet. You see volcanoes spewing ash and lava. Beside them is the ocean which is swarming with many different species of echinoderms, bryozoans and brachiopods. As you look down onto the sea floor you are amazed at the countless number of starfish and urchins. Some animals leave you can't even describe and you have no idea even what phylum they belong to. This is a world at its height in diversity of oceanic species. Millions of wonderous species existed at this time in the ocean and most of them will never appear again in earth's history. In the geologic time scale, a million

Through her extensive work, Mary Anning’s discoveries provided factual evidence to support the theories of evolution and extinction, resulting to an increased understanding and in-depth knowledge of the structure and nature of extinct creatures from early pre-historic Earth. Scientists and the general public during this era were skeptical of the idea that organisms could be extinct and/or change structurally over the years through natural selection, however, the discovery of the bizarre fossils found by Mary Anning became evidence for these ideas. Through Mary Anning’s legacy, modern-day scientists have now discovered even more evidence that supports the ideas and theories that were suggested during the 1800’s. From result of the discoveries of Mary Anning, our current understanding of the history of life on Earth has developed drastically through her contribution to paleontology and the discoveries of fossil evidence for organisms of early

Physical Description: The sculpin has no scales and has alternating black and yellow stripes on its fins but can be other colors like gray. It also has a preopercular spine that is shaped like antlers with three to four spinules.

Most Cambrian rocks contain fossils of trilobite shells, cap-shaped or flattened shells, and brachiopods (Whittington, 1985). When Walcott went looking for North American Cambrian fossils in August of 1909, he ended up in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. He and his wife found a loose block in the ridge they were searching near, split it open, and found what they later classified the “lace crab” (Briggs, 1994). Walcott knew right away what they had discovered was something different – the soft parts of the crab, such as the limbs, were preserved. During the next season, Walcott and his sons came back to the Shale, searching the slopes along the trail where they had discovered the loose block to find fossil layers. Luckily for them, the Shale rock layers were almost horizontal, and for thirty days a team quarried the ridge. The next year, they spent even longer quarrying. The last year spent quarrying the rocks was in 1917, when Walcott was 67 (Briggs, 1994). The rocks were removed from the ridge using picks, chisels, long iron bars, and small explosives. All the quarrying done by Walcott and his crew resulted in over sixty five thousand fossils, now stored in the

The author and his colleagues chose to focus on 375 million year old rocks in their search for fossils because amphibians that look dissimilar to fish were discovered in 365 million year old rocks, while fish without amphibian characteristics were discovered in 385 million year old rocks. Thus, it is possible that the evolutionary intermediary, or the “missing link” between fish and amphibians, would be discovered in 375 million year old rocks, between the two time periods. The rocks examined were sedimentary in composition, as the gradual and relatively gentle formation of sedimentary rock under conditions of mild pressure and low heat are conducive to the fossilization of animal remains. Sedimentary rock is also often formed in rivers and seas, where animals are likely to live. This site provides a resource that describes means by which fossils are formed and how the fossil record may be interpreted, and shows some examples of fossils demonstrating evolution through geological periods: http://www.fossilmuseum.net/fossilrecord.htm. In 2004, Shubin and his colleagues were looking for fossils on Ellesmere Island, in northern Canada. This location was chosen because of its lack of human development, as well as of obstructing natural formations and life forms such as trees, which

The purple colored plate was given as the wild culture with no mutations and observed by a group of three persons. Observations of the adults included that they were the fastest moving and they also were the ones to move around the most. The embryos were clearly seen in the body and they often trampled over the other worms. There were fewer embryos in the culture and they were immobile. They were clear in the middle with black outline and sometimes hard to see. The smaller larva clustered into piles. However, when the plate was dropped and tapped, the worms scattered and moved faster than they were before. Even tickling the worm produced a reaction of them moving even when they weren’t before. There were about 10% embryos, and 18% of adults, L1, L2, L3, and L4 worms. For the green colored plate, the group found the mutation to be a roller. It was observed that the worms were in a circle or horseshoe shape and 100% of adults seem to be in this position and not moving very often like the wildtype. Even when dropped, the worms did not move very quickly, if at all. There was also fewer small larva. The red colored plate was observed to be the Dpy-10 mutation or also known as dumpy. These worms were slow moving, short, and fat. Some of them didn’t move at all, and tapping did not increase the movement at all. The worms seemed to be at a length of .05 mm. There was also less large larva

These techniques led to the discovery of the boundary between the two eras. A single thin layer of clay found within predominantly limestone rocks established this. By comparing the marine life found in, above, and below the clay, the marine life, like the dinosaurs, had been terribly affected by the extinction event. The percentage of life in the upper layers was dramatically lower than that in the lower. This was far more compelling than what was suggested by dinosaur’s fossils.

Beginning about 1850 Ma, we find acritarchs, spherical microfossils with thick and complex organic walls. They are probably dinoflagellates that spent most of their life floating in the plankton.