Ancient Animals – Really Ancient
Comments: 1
Now this is interesting. Fossils have been found in my home state of Western Australia containing what look like tracks made by some kind of ancient vermiform animal. Scientists at the University of Western Australia think these tracks may be the earliest evidence of animal life on earth.
And just how early? Try double the currently accepted age of the earliest animal fossils – 1.2 billion years!
Fossil find takes life on Earth way back
By Deborah Smith, The Sydney Morning Herald
Sets of wriggly narrow tracks in 1.2 billion-year-old sandstone in Western Australia are thought to have been made by worm-like creatures.
The find suggests that complex multi-cellular organisms had evolved 600 million years earlier than had previously been thought.
Team leader Birger Rasmussen, of the University of Western Australia, said the organism probably oozed mucus and the tracks were made when it ”moved along a muddy surface, creating ridges on either side that were held in place by slime".
The fossils were discovered in Stirling Range National Park, in south-western Western Australia. The team dated the rocks to between 1200 and 2000 million years old using a sophisticated analysis of the uranium and thorium-bearing minerals in the sandstone.
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Posted to Oh, the Humanity • 2002.05.10 (Fri) • 20:50
Comments
Posted by Cj 2003.07.12, 06:38
It is facinating, isn’t it?
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