MoosBizarre looking soft tissue organisms like jellyfish have been found fossilized in great detail. Now, these fantastic fossils are found in deposits all over the world. Scientists want to discover why the Ediacara Biota were so well preserved—in particular, the reasons for their very unusual fossilization as impressions in sandstone—in part to fill in a critical gap in the evolution of macroscopic life on Earth.
#evolution #fossils #softbodied #jellyfish
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-strange-ancient-remarkable-fossils.html
How did these strange, ancient organisms turn into such remarkable fossils?
In Earth's fossil record, soft-bodied organisms like jellyfish rarely stand the test of time. What's more, it's hard for any animal to get preserved with exceptional detail in sandstones, which are made of large grains, are porous, and commonly form in environments swept by rough storms and waves. But about 570 million years ago, in a geologic time interval called the Ediacaran period, strange-looking, soft-bodied organisms died on the seafloor, were buried in sand, and fossilized in incredible detail.
Stefan F. Wirth
