Article: Ancient life in China limestone

Ancient life in China limestone

Researchers have found well-preserved fossils of organisms that lived on the
ocean bed about 550 million years ago.

The fossils, unearthed in Southern China, are of some of the earliest
complex lifeforms known to science.

Frondose vendobionts died out before the Cambrian explosion about 540
million years ago, when animals with bones and shells appeared.

They are not closely related to any modern species but share similarities
with fungi, lichen, and algae.

Evidence of complex life older than 540 million years is hard to study.

Many of the organisms that appeared in the Ediacaran Period (the time period
between about 600 and 542 million years ago) had soft body parts that do not
make an impression in rock.

Full text at the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4664741.stm

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek


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