Ediacaran

The Ediacaran period (about 635–541 million years BC), is named after the Ediacara Hills of South Australia. It is the last geological period of the Proterozoic eon. The Edicaran is followed by the Cambrian, the first period of the Palaeozoic.

The period is famous for the first larger-bodied fossils, which are probably the first recorded animals. These were impressions or trace fossils, first found in England's Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire.^[1][2] Geologists did not know what they had found. It was over 60 years later before fossils from the same period were found in South Australia.^[3][4]

The status of the Ediacaran as an official geological period was confirmed in 2004 by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). This made it the first new geological period declared in 120 years.^[5]

1. ↑ Hill E & Bonner T.G. 1877. The PreCarboniferous rocks of Charnwood Forest. Q.J. Geol Soc. 33, 754-789.
2. ↑ Bottjer, David J. 2002. Enigmatic Ediacara fossils: ancestors or aliens? In Bottjer et al. (eds) Exceptional fossil preservation: a unique view on the evolution of marine life. Columbia, N.Y.
3. ↑ Sprigg R.C. 1947. Early Cambrian (?) jellyfish from the Flinders Ranges, South Australia. Trans Roy Soc South Australia 71, 212-224.
4. ↑ Glaessner M.F. 1984. The dawn of animal life: a biohistorical study. Cambridge.
5. ↑ Knoll A.H. 2002. A new period for the geologic time scale. Science 305, 621.