The fossil, which formed some time between 551 million and 539 million years ago, in the Ediacaran period, joins a growing body of evidence that challenges the idea that animal life on Earth burst onto the scene in an event known as the Cambrian explosion, which began about 539 million years ago.
“It is just pushing things further and further back into the Ediacaran,” says Rachel Wood, a geoscientist at the University of Edinburgh, UK. The Cambrian explosion no longer appears to be such an abrupt event in the history of life on Earth, she says.
Do you have any idea why they define this date as the beginning of the Cambrian explosion? I can’t think of anything particularly special that happened right then.
Great. So what marks the start of the radiation given that date? What we see is a slow increase in the numbers and complexity of both the small shelly fauna and ichnofossils, both starting in the late Ediacaran, and then a huge increase in body fossils at the start of Cambrian Stage 3, at 521ma. So how does anyone place a beginning of the explosion in that data?
And for some reason @Faizal_Ali’s source puts the start of the Cambrian at 539ma.
The paper doesn’t explicitly say “the start of the Cambrian was 539ma”, but makes the statement that since the formation the fossil was found in was dated to between 551 and 539ma, it can essentially be said that the fossil itself dates to the terminal Ediacaran.
This point was also the first thing to catch my eye when I read the abstract, because those dates technically allow for the possibility that this fossil might actually be early Cambrian, but reading the paper it seems clear that the fossil is from deep enough in the formation to be closer to 551ma than 539ma, putting it firmly in the Ediacaran.
Evolution News on the recent discovery of half billion year old worm-like creature.
EN says the high priest of DI - Stephen Meyer predicted this find. Great call Stephen! Now I want to congratulate and thank the real scientists who published the results of their hard work.
From EN:
it’s enough to congratulate the discoverers on something that is interesting, of course, but irrelevant to the big question: what is the source of the genetic information for 20 new complex body plans that appear suddenly and simultaneously in a geological instant in the Cambrian explosion? That is the question.
Why doesn’t DI ask Stephen Meyer for that answer? The Intelligent Designer was hanging around waiting for the end of the Ediadian and for the Cambrian to begin in order to “poof” 20 new complex body plans into existence. The IDer had the X bits of information ready to insert into the genetic code of then living organisms and viola - 20 new complex body plans. IDer of the Gaps at its finest.