The 'babbler's top 10!

Those who know my palaeontological interests tend to know that I have a major passion within palaeontology and there is a particular fossil group which I adore more than any other. They are of course the Ediacaran fossils and I have written about them at length many a time. Just click on the search labels and see, or click here and here  for the same effect. And if you want to know how I got interested in them, see here.  This list, believe it or not, is not going to include Ediacarans. They are my number one, so the list would be too predictable if I included them. This list will not be static, instead it reflects what gets my attention at the moment. I am hoping that those who know me well will find at least one or two surprises.

Before I count down I want to mention those groups which narrowly missed out on making the list. The fauna of the Zechstein sea, particularly fossils found in South Yorkshire, interest me a lot as they are my local fossils. I have blogged about them a few times and hope to do something more academic with them too. I also briefly considered adding crocodiles to the list, as their past threw up many interesting variations which look nothing like our modern crocs, but I know little about them (I would say that if you want to be a vertebrate palaeontologist then crocodiles may be a great area to study). I also considered adding jawless, armoured fish from the Silurian, as I had a lecture on them today and found them very interesting, but they just missed out to some groups which I have liked for longer. So, onto the list...

10: Crinoids 

A crinoid fossil from Doncaster Museum.

This one might surprise a few people, as many find crinoids to be quite dull. I also often mock crinoids and call them flowers, but that doesn't mean that I don't like them, I genuinely do. I've even written about them a few times, see here (though I should add that I have written more than just those, but sometimes I get lazy with the labels). Crinoids are often beautifully preserved, are very impressive fossils (when articulated) and are thankfully rather common. They are also still alive, with a fossil record going back all the way to the Ordovician. This makes them a good group to study, yet they have not gotten much attention. They should be used as textbook examples of things like evolutionary responses to predation, so one can hope for that in the future. I got interested in them during my first year of my uni course as I had to make a poster with a course-mate. I paired up with James, whose main interest is crinoids, which we combined with my main interest (at the time) of evolution, producing a poster about crinoid adaptive strategies. I thoroughly enjoyed the research and recognised them as a group with a lot of beauty and potential. Certainly worthy of my top ten and I would not be opposed to dabbling in them some more in future if opportunity knocks.

9: The Dinosaur to Bird Transition
It is well established now that birds evolved from dinosaurs, which is testament to the hard work of many palaeontologists. Laboriously comparing traits on fragmented fossils, they had to rely completely on a few rare transitional fossils to come to their conclusions. No genetic testing was available, only comparison of fossils. If we had no Archaeopteryx then our understanding might have been rather different. We are fortunate now to have quite a range of fossils spanning this transition, with feathered dinosaurs on one side, primitive birds on the other, and a spectrum in between, where individual traits can be seen to gradually change. It also allows me to include a group I like but have not included in this list - dromaeosaurs. Those swift, vicious hunters were closely related to the ancestor of birds, possessing many key skeletal precursors and covered in many feathers. This group of fossils speaks of my childhood love of dinosaurs (which still exists in a non-academic sense, enough to get a tattoo of one) and of my love of evolution. I do not intend to study them academically, though I would not turn down a good look at Archaeopteryx and will undoubtedly write about them in future.

8: Thyreophora

These are the armoured dinosaurs. This group includes the stegosaurs of the Jurassic and the ankylosaurs of the Cretaceous, along with the nodosaurs which tend to get less attention (though thyreophorans as a whole tend to get overlooked, except perhaps Stegosaurus itself). The stegosaurs were a favourite of mine as a child, with Tuojiangosaurus being an obscure preference. These have leapt into my list because I attended a lecture about the thyreophora just last week, by a friend of mine, and was reminded how fascinating they can be. I also have an ankylosaur-obsessed friend, so I hear about them a lot. They might have been slow and stupid, but it worked! They were incredible beasts and deserve more attention. I think if I were fortunate enough to have the skeleton of just one dinosaur  on display, it would have to be some sort of stegosaur.

7: Fossils of the Hunsrück-Schiefer

A beautiful pyrite-preserved brittle star Ophinurina lymani. 

This is a  lagerstätte from the Devonian, found in Germany, also known as the Hunsrück slate. This diverse array of fossils has soft tissue preservation, with many fossils being exceptionally beautiful as they are preserved in pyrite. Various echinoderms are found, including crinoids (more than 60 species), alongside trilobites, brachiopods, jawless fish, even jellyfish. The fossils found at this site are some of the most beautiful in the world in my opinion. I am thoroughly jealous of the person who owns the fossil pictured. I may write about them at length soon, as I intend to do an essay about them as an assignment.



6: The Fish to Amphibian Transition
Another fascinating evolutionary transition which is documented well by the fossils, yet manages to keep astonishing us. The "fishibian" Tiktaalik is becoming one of the main transitional forms mentioned, though it would need a lot more publicity to surpass Archaeopteryx in fame. One of the reasons this group of fossils makes my list is because Neil Shubin's book Your Inner Fish had a big impact on me, informing my understanding of evolution and helping reignite my passion for palaeontology. A good portion of the book is dedicated to Tiktaalik, which the author was instrumental in finding.

5: Eurypterids

These are the mighty sea scorpions, scourges of the Silurian seas. Some of them grew enormous, up to around eight feet long, yet recent studies sadly suggest that they were not the vicious sea monsters we would love them to be. They most likely spent a lot of time lurking, waiting for prey to come into close proximity, before they attacked. They did not have incredible strength, so likely went for weak and small prey in the sea. Even so, they are still impressive and their fossil remains are often beautiful and not too difficult to recognise. I managed to get a good look at quite a few eurypterid fossils last summer at the museum, Pterygotus and Slimonia, which gave me an interest in them. I enjoyed having to closely inspect them and try to work out how many segments each had, while attempting to learn the names of each part. I would love to see the giant sea scorpion up close some day. And for the record, they are not ancestors of terrestrial scorpions.

4: The Transition from Reptiles to Mammals
This is arguably the most beautiful transition in the fossil record. We are exceptionally lucky to have numerous well-preserved fossils documenting this pivotal change in our history. It is most famous for the fact that we can see the changes from the reptilian jaw, which contains around seven bones, to the mammalian condition where there is one main jaw bone. What is incredible about this is that the fossils show the other jaw bones becoming reduced and migrating to the ear, where they have become the inner ear bones of all mammals. There are even some fossils with double hinges on their jaws, caught in the act in a way. The changes in the jaw and ear are alongside changes from reptilian motion (side to side) to the up-down undulation of mammalian movement; changes in dentition and the development of a secondary palate, allowing them to chew; the development of fur and warm blood, and a whole host of other changes which are intimately linked (usually metabolism and consumption) and documented by the fossils. Astonishing!

3: The Cambrian "Explosion" Fauna

The fossils of the Cambrian are undoubtedly some of the most important, as we find the earliest examples of most of the modern phyla during a time of exceptional evolutionary creativity. Not only are there the familiar groups, such as trilobites and even members of our own phylum, but there are a host of oddballs which defy classification, such as Opabinia. My favourites during this period are the unusual arthropods, such as Anomalocaris, and lobopod worms such as Hallucigenia (pictured). There are a few famous sites of exceptional preservation during the Cambrian diversification event, giving us amazing windows to peer into the ancient world. Stephen Jay Gould made the Cambrian fossils of the Burgess Shale the stars of the show in his book Wonderful Life which I thoroughly recommend. This is likely a very predictable group for my list, as our understanding of Ediacara impacts on our interpretations of what was going on during the Cambrian. There are always new ideas popping up trying to explain the Cambrian explosion and it has been a constant source of fascination for palaeontologists for a while now.

2: Trilobites

I would be very surprised if trilobites did not make the list of the vast majority of palaeontologists, if they were asked to make such lists. Anyone interested in palaeontology should read Richard Fortey's Trilobite and marvel at the myriad forms and uses of this important fossil group. Trilobites are iconic, fascinating and are often beautifully preserved fossils. They exploited pretty much every marine niche possible and had stunning diversity, before their demise at the end of the Permian. They are justifiably one of the most studied groups, better known than some extant groups! They are not just wonders to gaze at, but are also heavily used in biostratigraphy, biogeography, palaeoecology and more. I have done a few blogs on trilobites, so this should have come as no surprise. I have sadly not been anywhere to find any yet, but that will be remedied soon. I'd love to work on them too.

1: Small Shelly Fauna

Often referred to as SSFs these may seem like an odd group to have at number one. The informed or observant reader might have predicted this though. The blog icon is Microdictyon, a lobopod worm and SSF which is related to the aforementioned Hallucigenia. SSFs are microscopic mineralised parts which are largely enigmatic, though some are recognisable. They are found during the earliest stages of the Cambrian, right before the Cambrian explosion and right after the Ediacaran fossils. They herald the arrival of mineralised parts (not quite true, as there are a couple of genera at the end of the Ediacaran with hard parts) but we do not know what many of them are. Some fortunate soft tissue preservation has shown some of them to be parts of bigger organisms; the tiny, net-like sclerites of Microdictyon for example. There are cap-like shells which are micromolluscs, but many of them remain incredibly mysterious, though they are useful in biostratigraphy and overlap with trilobite zones which occur a bit later. I liked this group before I started getting really into Ediacarans, though I don't know too much about them. They are currently my favourite topic of research as I am considering doing a major project on them, which I am really looking forward to.

So there you go, my top ten. While I was writing it I felt like swapping around the order, but this list is meant to be transient, so I thought I would stick to it how I originally order it rather than constantly shuffling them around. I can possibly guess what you are currently thinking and I bet the words "nerd" or "geek" pop up at least once.

Deciphering Dickinsonia...

The Ediacaran organism Dickinsonia  is one I have often avoided writing about and the first time I did I stated that I would like to do a blog about the different interpretations of Dickinsonia which have been offered, though I thought it would be futile (see here, where I mentioned the comparison with the polychaete Spinther). Since then I have done only one blog about this puzzling fossil, which was a joke post where I pretended that a live one had been found. I had also been avoiding writing about Charnia, which is one of the icons of Ediacara alongside Dickinsonia, though I finally got my backside into gear and wrote at length about it around a month ago, see here.  Just like with Charnia this is an iconic and enigmatic fossil, which I have looked at casts of (though not the real thing) and have finally found the impetus to write at length about it. While researching for my final year project, which I have to start this summer, I started reading a paper about Dickinsonia  which was exceptionally informative and is the source of the information I present here (though simplified and opinionated as many blogs do). My project will sadly not be on Ediacarans, as that is just not viable for an undergrad project in the UK, but I still ended up getting enthralled by the paper on Dickinsonia. So what is it?

Photograph by Phoebe Cohen

When Dickinsonia was first found, by Reg Sprigg in Australia, 1947, it was thought to be a Cambrian fossil, as everyone "knew" that Precambrian rocks did not contain macrofossils. The first interpretation came from Harrington and Moore in 1956 (still believing it as Cambrian) who classified it as a cnidarian (a jellyfish) and saw evidence of simple tentacles. Since then the evidence of tentacles has been reinterpreted as contraction marks, though as late as 1992 Valentine was comparing it to a cnidarian, this time the coral Fungia. I personally like this comparison, but only really because Fungia corals are rather beautiful (the isomer arrangement is not like that of Dickinsonia). In 2006 Dickinsonia was even linked with the ctenophores (comb jellies).

A Fungia coral, resembling Dickinsonia. 

In 1966, Glaessner and Wade interpreted it as a polychaete worm, though lacking the characteristic parapodial claws (though interestingly Wade interpreted the morphologically similar Chondroplon as a type of cnidarian). The main comparison for Dickinsonia became the modern polychaete Spinther, which I still find hard to locate pictures of online. I've found beautiful images in books dedicated to polychaetes, which I recommend doing as the resemblance is interesting (though considered incorrect). So far what has been outlined is what has sometimes been termed the "Australian School" of thought concerning Ediacaran affinities (due to the main proponents working in Australia). This line of thought sees them as bilateral and although they are seen as not being modern examples of a particular phylum, they are seen as stem groups of modern phyla, which branched long ago and went extinct but were still part of the groups we know and love today. This view went unchallenged until the 70s and 80s, when new ideas emerged in Europe. The 'Australian school' is still going strong, though are less forthright in their proclamations than before.

Enter the "European School". The antipodean researchers tended to compare differences in Ediacarans, whilst also comparing perceived similarities with modern invertebrates, causing them to see primitive forms of modern taxa. Contrary to this, the 'European School' favoured the idea that the Ediacaran biota were more closely related to each other than to modern organisms. They looked instead to similarities in the fossils as potential homologies. This view began with Pflug in 1970, when he looked at Ernietta  and erected his own group Petalonamae. One of the key features here is that the body segments on each side of Dickinsonia and many other Ediacarans is offset slightly - what is known as 'glide symmetry'. Some have seen this as a variation of bilateral symmetry, whereas others see it as excluding them from true bilateria and being a unifying feature of many Ediacaran forms. Pflug saw the Petalonamae as colonial bodies, with segments either side of the centre.

Fedonkin, in 1983, was the first to show that Dickinsonia had glide symmetry, arguing that it was not bilateral. He placed these organisms in his own phylum Proarticulata, which was considered to be an extinct metazoan group, though he did suggest that it might be ancestral to true bilaterians, even linking them to chordates.

The epitome of 'European School' thought is that of Seilacher. He used the shared characters of Ediacaran forms and differences from modern phyla to suggest an extinct kingdom. Over time he reduced it to a phylum and it has been known as Vendozoa, though now more commonly Vendobionta.  Seilacher's argument revolved around morphology and taphonomy. He pointed out similarities in structure, including the glide symmetry, but also the 'quilted pneu' structure of the fossils, filled with fluid, unlike any of the organisms they had normally been compared to. Oddly enough though, he reconstructed Dickinsonia as bilateral. The quilt-like structure, he argued, prevented Vendobionts from functioning like modern organisms with which they had been compared. He also claimed that they had a tough, leathery skin, which was integral in their unusual preservation. In one fell swoop Seilacher had steered the study of Ediacarans in new directions (pardon the mixed metaphors). The period became weirder than we had ever imagined and the shoe-horning interpretations of his Australian colleagues did not seem tenable.

How Seilacher organised his Vendobionts.

A 20cm xenophyophore. 

In 2003 Seilacher's views began to change, classifying the Vendobionts as giant protozoans, though that interpretation was first offered by Zhuralev in 1993. Seilacher had opened the door for a wide variety of interpretations, challenging perceived orthodoxy. Xenophyophores are large protists which do occasionally resembled Ediacarans and the foraminifera are amoeboid protists which were occasionally very large. 

McMenamin envisioned Ediacaran times to be peaceful, with no predation, labelling it the Garden of Ediacara. He also suggested that these large protists (as he also saw them) were symbiotic, containing a large number of smaller protists and bacteria, possibly allowing them to photosynthesise and chemosynthesise.

A heavily contested interpretation of Dickinsonia is that it is connected to fungi and lichens, and the chordate connection resurfaced in 2003. In 2004 Brasier and Antcliffe brought ideas which are, in my eyes, the most sensible suggestion. They appear to be connected to true metazoa, but of a simple grade of organisation, comparable to that of what is informally known as a coelenterate (these have only 2 layers of cells, simply organised, with a hollow body cavity). They also suggested that similar forms (based on lack of clear internal subdivisions), labelled dickinsoniomorphs, may be different variations of the same species, whether it be due to ontogeny, environment or taphonomy. With this interpretation we can see them as connected to modern life in some way, but still an evolutionary experiment which largely failed; we can happily state that we don't know what they are, but have ideas of how to classify them and further our understanding.

Much current controversy revolves around trace fossils found of dickinsoniomorphs. The most well known are those of Yorgia, where resting traces were found next to a preserved print of the causative organism (they are clearly the same organism and are preserved in opposite relief to Yorgia). This was seen as clear evidence of motility in Dickinsonia and its kin. If they had been skip trails then they would have been better aligned than they are, though there are reasons not to take it as evidence of the organism moving on its own. The organism was not heavy enough to cause traces of such depth, which has led many to suggest that they were made through feeding on the underside through absorption of the biomat, possibly using pseudopodia (which led to the suggestion that they were a stem group of the Placozoa as these feed that way and are also seen as a link between protozoa and metazoa, though this comparison is ill-justified). The direction of movement suggests that the organism glided over the surface after it finished feeding, which lacks intentionality and is not the sort of movement associated with metazoa.

Yorgia resting traces. Beautiful!

So what is Dickinsonia? Well, I have no idea. I take the European view that it is more closely related to other Ediacaran forms than to modern groups and is not a stem group of any phylum. I prefer Seilacher's old view to his newer ones (though they were more flexible than his leathery reconstruction, but had rigidity due to turgor of the liquids inside) and do not believe that they were protists, or fungi as others suggested. Far more study needs to be done into dickinsoniomorphs to determine relationships and we must avoid seeing what we want to see. I expect that they will be argued over for a long time and for now I am particularly liking the views of Antcliffe and Brasier.

I have mentioned a lot of research within this blog, but due to the hour I am posting and the fact that the paper was very informative, I shall only reference one paper, which is essential reading if you are interested in Dickinsonia:


Brasier, M.D., Antcliffe J.B., 2008. Dickinsonia from Ediacara: A new look at morphology and body construction. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 270, 311–323.

In the tooooown where I was born...

I've mentioned my home village a couple of times in relation to palaeontology as I have spent the last year attempting to collect fossils there. I spent my whole life not knowing that I could find them, but that is not surprising considering how small they are and their rarity. My village does not have much to offer palaeontologists, but that does not mean it is a dull place to live. The village is Conisbrough, which is almost a small town, sitting on the outskirts of Doncaster, along the river Don, in South Yorkshire, England. Conisbrough is one of those places which is quite built up, yet at the same time is surrounded by countryside, so one is able to live in both worlds in a way. I spent my youth wandering the streets at times, whilst also being able to wander off deep into the woods or through farmers' fields. We also combined the two when we roughed it in the woods sometimes, as we used to raid skips in the street for firewood instead of what was available there. Conisbrough has some great appeal, especially for me, as I have passing interests in castles, old churches and UFOs/aliens, all of which can be found in Conisbrough.

The main attraction of Conisbrough is the castle, standing proud even though its walls are mostly rubble. Built in the 12th century, it also has a round keep, making it rather special. It is well known as the inspiration for Sir Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe, and many streets and schools in Conisbrough are named after characters in the book (Conisbrough also used to have a street called "Butt Hole Road" but sadly it changed to "Archers Way").  I have a soft spot for castles, they are such incredible buildings and speak of a lost age where warriors died by the sword and not by the bullet. Conisbrough Castle is well worth visiting and does not get the advertising it deserves. It is one of the most breathtaking buildings in South Yorkshire, if not the whole of Yorkshire. I've lived in Stafford and currently live in Portsmouth, both of which have castles, yet neither have compared to Conisbrough and that is not bias speaking.

Conisbrough also boasts the oldest building in South Yorkshire, as St Peter's Church dates back to the 8th century. It was greatly expanded in the 12th century, during a time when it was one of the most important churches in the area. Even though I have spent most of my life attending this church, crawling under pews as a kid, taking kids up on the roof as a youth group member, playing guitar in the worship group, I still don't know which part is from the original church. A couple of years ago some kids smashed a Medieval window in the church, among other things. It has also suffered from lead being stolen from the roof repeatedly, necessitating the expensive replacement of the roof recently. This is not just a place of worship, it is an icon of Conisbrough (along with the castle, the water tower and the viaduct) and a valuable piece of English history. It is such a shame when people take it for granted.

I also mentioned that UFOs could be found in Conisbrough - I was not lying. In 1966 a schoolboy named Stephen Pratt (I went to school with his son) took this picture, which is widely considered to be legitimate. Any good book on UFO sightings will show it. The street happens to be very close to my nannan's house, where I also saw a UFO once. I was sitting in one of the bedrooms at my nan's, watching things out of the window, when suddenly I saw something zoom above the back gardens. It was roughly level with the window and looked like a rock, possibly about the size of my body, with a long tail of fire. I automatically thought it was a meteorite and my dad did not dismiss my claim. I still have no idea what it was, or whether I even really did see something. I don't for a second believe that I saw an alien craft, just that I saw something flying through the sky which I could not identify.

For the record, my views on aliens are that they may possibly exist in a form which we would identify as microbial. I don't rule out the possibility of microbial alien life existing in our solar system, though I don't see it as too likely. I also don't rule out the possibility of alien life having converged on different aspects of Earth-life. I like the idea of plants on other planets requiring different coloured chlorophyll due to different stars and atmospheres. Even sentience evolving more than once is not completely far-fetched, however, I do believe it would be so rare that it would either be too far away or will have gone extinct already. We will never make contact in my opinion. I wrote a bit more on a Facebook discussion a while ago. I also blogged about the possibility of Martian palaeontology, see here.

Conisbrough does have more to offer, though not too much. The Earth Centre was intended to be an eco-friendly theme park, built for the millennium, yet it bombed and closed in 2005. I personally only went there when it was free or when they had a skate park up. It may soon be used by universities teaching ecology or some such, though at the moment it reminds me of Jurassic Park in places. Conisbrough also spawned the singer Tony Christie and Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson traced his family back to the village (which he labelled a shithole apparently). And then there is me...

Confused by Charniodiscus

Within one of the university draws lie the casts of frondose Ediacaran fossils, famous for changing our understanding of Precambrian life. One such form is Charniodiscus, known for its large frond, prominent stalk and circular holdfast. Until recently I had not taken enough of an interest in either Charnia or Charniodiscus to be able to tell the difference between the two, however, I did recently blog on Charnia and got better acquainted with its morphology. I intend to go back in to the stores and compare the two forms in order to get a better feel for them both (the cast of Charniodiscus can be seen here, with me, in a rather rude pose).

I would also like to be able to compare Charniodiscus to the Cambrian frond Thaumaptilon. The latter had once been linked to Ediacaran frondose fossils, though more specifically Charnia, which has been shown to have grown differently to modern sea pens. Thaumaptilon was perceived as possible evidence that Ediacaran forms had extended into the Phanerozoic and could potentially be linked to Cnidarians. This link does not work with Charnia, however, Charniodiscus resembles Thaumaptilon more closely.  I'm not suggesting that I think they are closely related, just that the resemblance is worth investigating and so far I have done little to no research on this.

My source of confusion, however, is not due to phylogeny. I am open-minded about the phylogenetic position of Charniodiscus, whether it is closely related to Charnia and other rangeomorph Ediacarans, or whether it is some sort of primitive pennatulacean, though I do believe the morphospace data suggests close relationship to Charnia. My source of confusion is this image:

It depicts two types of Charniodiscus, but I have no idea what they are meant to be doing. The website can be seen here, though it is in Japanese and there is no clue as to what is going on or who the picture is by. Are they fighting? Kissing? Accidentally bumping one another? Is this an example of Precambrian violence? or porn? I'm baffled!

References:

Antcliffe, J.B.; Brasier, M.D. (2007a). Charnia and sea pens are poles apart. Journal of Geological Society 164 (1): 49.

Antcliffe, J.B.; Brasier, M.D (2007b). Towards a morphospace for the Ediacara biota. 377–386. In VICKERS-RICH, P. and KOMAROWER, P. (eds). The rise and fall of the Ediacaran biota. Geological Society of London Special Publication 286, London, 456 pp

Shu, D.-G., Conway Morris, S. & Han, J. et al. 2006. Lower Cambrian vendobionts from China and early diploblast evolution. Science, 312, 731–734

Awww poor America.

Sadly American education on evolution is still not doing well, see here. I don't have much to say about this, though I think it is such a poorly taught subject in the UK as well. Shame.

Why Ediacarans?

As may be obvious, I am obsessed with the Ediacaran biota, which are organisms from the end of the Precambrian that are puzzling to palaeontologists, both in their relationship to living organisms and in how they lived. They have often been referred to as the Rorschach test of palaeontology - every palaeontologist sees something different. To the average viewer they probably look dull,; a friend of mine recently referred to Dickinsonia as the fart of a jelly slime and my girlfriend tends to refer to Ediacarans as "animal plants" or something similar, clearly thinking of Charnia. So why Ediacarans?

The jelly-slime-fart...errrm.... I mean Dickinsonia.

As a child, the Ediacarans would have bored me to tears. I was obsessed with dinosaurs and nothing else. Not even pterosaurs or ichthyosaurs. Even the massive mammals from earlier in the Cenozoic could not distract me from the dinosaurs. However, I do think part of my love for dinosaurs went on to later influence me, and not just because they involve fossils. Dinosaurs are weird, yet familiar. I think the weirdness and mystery appealed to a small extent, but those features are bland in dinosaurs when compared to some of the weird wonders of the ancient invertebrate world. Still, thinking about extinct lineages does have its appeal when it comes to imagination.

When I later returned to palaeontology it was due to a passion for evolutionary biology. It brought the fossils back to life for me again and I wanted to be a vertebrate palaeontologist, getting paid to research transitional forms and to write books about the ins and outs of evolutionary theory. Neil Shubin's work appealed to me a lot as it tied in genetics, which I also find fascinating. At this point the Ediacarans might have come to my attention, but even then they were an odd little esoteric detail. They were covered for no more than a page of a book really, which tended to amount to little more than mentioning that they are enigmatic and may have been a failed evolutionary experiment. I learnt about them at this point solely to inform me about the goings on of the Cambrian "explosion".

My favourite proposed evolutionary sequence (and ontogenetic)
from the Ediacaran, going from Parvancorina to an arthropod.

Before I started my course I read Trilobite by Richard Fortey and found it enthralling. At some point during my first year I asked myself if I would be interested in invertebrate palaeontology as opposed to vertebrate palaeontology and I instantly imagined studying trilobites. My answer was yes, with the addition that although I still wanted to study evolution, I could study all sorts of other things too. This potentially opened things wide as I was no longer far removed from the Ediacaran, but my subject of interest went back at least to the Cambrian. I was possibly also swayed whilst I was working with a friend on a poster presentation about crinoids. Crinoids are stalked echinoderms, which also often get mistaken for plants. We did the poster on a comparison of adaptive strategies, enabling me to engage with evolution and my friend (or should that be colleague?) to study crinoids. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of researching a group I knew little about and realised that I would not be opposed to doing it for a living (studying areas I had not yet considered, such as invertebrates). University is supposed to make one specialise, yet there I was broadening my possibilities. 

The poster presentation was done as a little competition too, from which I won a book. It was Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould and as should be well known, it is about the Cambrian explosion. I found myself exposed to many of the weird beasties from the Cambrian and finding them fascinating. Vertebrates were certainly out of my mind by that point, yet evolution could still remain at the forefront. Gould briefly covered life just before the Cambrian explosion and I started to take notice, though at this point it was the Small Shelly Fossils (or Fauna) which intrigued me. They are such mysterious creatures, considering for most of them we just have microscopic bits of shell. The picture I use for this blog is Microdictyon; a SSF which was originally known by only its sclerites, until soft-bodied fossils were found, revealing it to be a lobopod worm. 

The Cambrian oddball Opabinia. 

So by this point my interest was in SSFs and the Cambrian diversification, still obsessed with evolution, having forgotten about vertebrates and embraced invertebrates. It did not take long for my obsession to switch, but I don't know how. I think I desired to see the link from Ediacarans to SSFs then through to the Cambrian diversification. It is so difficult to link these times together, I needed to know more. The Ediacarans are by far the most mysterious of the lot and the more I learn about them the more I find I do not know. There is a surprise round every corner, or in the case of palaeontology with every fossil found (and in my case with every paper or book I read). I still like the SSFs and the Cambrian diversification, but the Ediacaran has managed to enthral me with its mystique, yet like the dinosaurs of my youth they are tangible in a way. The fossils range in size, but many are large enough to make out without having to get too close. There is also a good diversity, contrary to what most books show. Your average book which mentions them, including textbooks, will show typical forms like Spriggina, Dickinsonia and Charnia. Yet I fell in love with Parvancorina and Kimberella. 

The Ediacaran period is one of the most important times in evolution. Animals were evolving at this point, but exactly when we do not know. Finding the unequivocal ancestors of extant phyla is fraught with difficulty. Understanding the evolution within the Ediacaran biota is tricky, with potential relationships found all over the place. It has been included in disparate interpretations of the metaphysics of evolution. Gould supported Seilacher's Vendobiont interpretation as it expresses the contingency and happen-stance of evolution, rendering humans as mere accidents. Whereas McMenamin looked at the same interpretation and believed that some of them showed potential signs of cephalisation, which he extended to mean that they could have evolved sentience had they not met their demise! McMenamin thought that the Vendobiont hypothesis supported convergent evolution as ubiquitous and directional, whereas Simon Conway Morris, a champion of convergent evolution, saw fit to want to get rid of the Vendobiont interpretation, believing that fewer lineages meant a more directed evolution. But I have digressed a tad.

Those beautiful Ediacarans...

What next? I doubt that my Ediacaran fondness will wane. I feel like I have found an area which I am sufficiently passionate about to study to a high level, perhaps dedicating my life to it. Other interests pop up now and again. I am interested in my local palaeobiology, enjoying studying the Permian fossils of the Zechstein Sea and their palaeoecology, but that it a side interest as it connects my home to my studies. I found trace fossils very interesting when we studied them, so fortunately there are Ediacaran trace fossils. I also really enjoyed examining the eurypterids at my local museum last summer, though I don't see that as a career prospect. I currently intend to try to find a doctorate position studying Ediacarans when I finish my degree in a year and a half's time. Watch this space. 

Charnia - About Time!

One of the most important fossils ever discovered, especially when you are interested in the Ediacaran period as I am, is Charnia masoni, yet I have never blogged about it. I barely ever mention this iconic find. On top of its importance it can be found in Britain and I have looked at casts of it, yet still no mention. Until now...

The original Charnia masoni fossil. 

The discovery of Charnia is a very well known one within palaeontology. In the past year it has been discussed on Bang Goes the Theory by the lovely Liz Bonnin, and more recently by Sir David Attenborough in his First Life documentary. The absence of fossils before the Cambrian had baffled Darwin, causing him much embarrassment which creationists sadly still think is a problem. In the 1950s fossils were found in Australia, but due to circular reasoning were not recognised internationally as they should have been. As Precambrian rocks were devoid of fossils, so the logic went, the fossiliferous rocks must have been Cambrian. It wasn't until a budding young geologist in Leicestershire's Charnwood Forest discovered a frondose fossil in unequivocally Precambrian rocks.

Modern sea pens.

Like all Ediacaran fossils good old Charnia is difficult to classify and its life habits have remained mysterious. It was first classified as algae (in the journal of the Yorkshire Geological Society believe it or not) before being reinterpreted as a sea pen (pennatulacean cnidarians), an interpretation which stuck for quite some time and resulted in many Ediacaran forms being shoe-horned into modern phyla.


This interpretation was first challenged when Dolf Seilacher presented his Vendozoa classification, suggesting that the Ediacaran forms were an evolutionary experiment in multicellularity which left no descendants. The nature of what are now referred to as Vendobionts has changed a lot since Seilacher's ingenious proposal. Originally they were a separate, metacellular, kingdom, before later becoming an extinct phylum which diverged before true animals evolved. Eventually Seilacher settled on the idea that Vendobionts were large, quilted protists.

Seilacher's view of a separate phylum is widely accepted, though his classification of the Ediacaran Vendobionts as protists is less well accepted. Charnia is classified as a Rangeomorph - a taxon containing the frondose fossils of the Ediacaran, believed to potentially be a monophyletic clade (meaning they are not from separate groups but have similar morphologies because they are closely related) morphospace data appears to bear this out.

Charnia's connection to the sea pens was not completely thrown out, particularly because the classification of Charnia is hugely important. If it can be connected to modern forms then the Garden of Ediacara was not so bizarre after all, perhaps evolution is actually quite predictable. If, however, it was a failed experiment, then the Ediacaran remains ridiculously enigmatic, positively alien to us. The connection to sea pens was made through a Cambrian frond-like fossil called Thaumaptilon, which I elucidated here. At the time I did not want to comment on a potential relationship with Charnia, but now I know that they were unlikely to have been related. One simple reason I will give is that Charnia has no stalk running down the centre, yet Thaumaptilon does, though a much better case can be made. Charnia's potential connection to the sea pens took its heaviest blow when it was shown that it grew in a very different way to sea pens. Ontogeny is important in connecting disparate fossil forms as it can be inferred from fossil data and is often quite evolutionarily rigid. Sea pens grow by adding extra polyps to the bottom, whereas Charnia did the opposite and added to the tip.

In working out the evolutionary relationships of many Ediacaran forms, particularly rangeomorphs, it seems that working out their life cycle might be the key. Many have overlapping morphologies which may be different growth stages. With heterochronic evolution changes in developmental timing produces different adult-stage morphologies, allowing a juvenile form to reach sexual maturity for example. These overlapping forms may also be different variations of the same organism, but from different environmental conditions (ecophenotypic variation) much like the variation seen in people from different continents. Bradgatia is one such form, as it is like a bush of Charnia. Many fossils are spindle forms (e.g. Fractofusus) which resemble two Charnia stuck end to end, branching outwards. All have fractal branching frondlets.

Bradgatia from Charnwood Forest. Photograph by Tina Negus. 

How it lived is perhaps the biggest mystery. It is believed to have lived quite deep, so photosynthesis seems to have been out of the question (whether it was an autotroph or used symbionts). Filter feeding is a possibility, but it seems to have evolved ways of folding which were inefficient. We may never know how it lived and fed.

There are many other rangeomorph fossils which resemble Charnia. Unsurprisingly Charniodiscus is one such fossil, also found in Charnwood Forest, a cast of which is pictured to the right, upside down, with myself using it for a rather lewd pose. This specimen is small compared to the 2m long Charnia found in Newfoundland.

The mysterious ivesheadiomorphs, or "pizza-discs", have recently been interpreted as the decayed remains (taphomorphs) of Charnia and related taxa.

An ivesheadiomorph.

Now all I need to do is see Charnia up close. I intend to visit Charnwood Forest some time over the summer if possible, though the Charnia found in Newfoundland, Canada, do greatly appeal.

Antcliffe, J.B.; Brasier, M.D. (2007a). Charnia and sea pens are poles apart. Journal of Geological Society 164 (1): 49.

Antcliffe, J.B.; Brasier, M.D (2007b). Towards a morphospace for the Ediacara biota. 377–386. In VICKERS-RICH, P. and KOMAROWER, P. (eds). The rise and fall of the Ediacaran biota. Geological Society of London Special Publication 286, London, 456 pp

Brasier, M.D. & Antcliffe, J.B. 2004. Decoding the Ediacaran enigma. Science, 305, 1115–1117.

Ford, T.E. 1958. Precambrian fossils from Charnwood Forest. Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society, 31, 211–217.

Liu, A. G.; McIlroy, D.; Antcliffe, J. B.; Brasier, M. D. (2011). Effaced preservation in the Ediacara biota and its implications for the early macrofossil record. Palaeontology: In press.

Seilacher, A. (2007) The nature of vendobionts. 387-397. In VICKERS-RICH, P. and KOMAROWER, P. (eds). The rise and fall of the Ediacaran biota. Geological Society of London Special Publication 286, London, 456 pp

Shu, D.-G., Conway Morris, S. & Han, J. et al. 2006. Lower Cambrian vendobionts from China and early diploblast evolution. Science, 312, 731–734

Dickinsonia, still alive?

Look, photographic evidence of the Ediacaran form Dickinsonia on the modern sea floor, taken using specialist cameras:

OK, so I lied... this is actually a picture of a Dickinsonia cast which I played around with for a bit. The photo was poor quality so I tried to improve it and ended up finding different settings which made it look like a possible modern photo. A much better job could be done in faking this (not that I am advocating that) as this was a mess around for a few minutes.

Though imagine the implications of finding this thing alive, having been absent from the fossil record for over 540 million years. So many questions would be answered by simply observing it. Does it move? This is constantly being debated as the trace fossils found accompanying some dickinsoniid fossils may not be trace fossils at all. Interpretations range from it being highly mobile, to it moving rarely, to not moving at all but producing the traces through being buffeted by currents. How does it feed? We'd be able to tell whether it sucked up nutrients from algal mats or whether it carried endosymbiotic organisms, or whether it used some completely different mode of feeding. A proper analysis of its morphology would be possible, giving much better insight into its habits, but most importantly its taxonomy. And of course, genetic testing would be possible, answering some of the fundamental questions which might potentially never be answered using fossil evidence alone. Ah, one can dream...

A spot of news

I stopped blogging about various bits of palaeo news quite a while ago when I slipped way behind and couldn't be bothered to catch up. Well, now I can, so here are the stories which have been catching my eye recently:

Darwinopterus is sexy

As my university is involved in pterosaur research I do like to keep my eye out for new information on those flying beasts (occasionally being privy to info before it has been published). This particular story is exciting for several reasons: the pterosaur in question is Darwinopterus, which is the rather recently found intermediate form between the two major groups of pterosaurs; it provides insight which is usually difficult (or impossible) to glean from fossils; and it simply is a beautiful fossil to look at. "Mrs T" as the fossil has been dubbed, is a Darwinopterus fossil which has been found with an egg. The egg appears to have been expelled from the body, probably due to the usual build up of gas after she died. This find allows palaeontologists to sex pterosaurs accurately for the first time; before now trying to determine the males and the females was based on conjecture. Mrs T lacks a crest, showing that pterosaurs are sexually dimorphic and lending support to the idea that pterosaur crest evolution was driven by sexual selection. Amusingly, Attenborough's ambitious pterosaur documentary in 3D apparently shows two crested pterosaurs mating (I intend to review his documentary at some point, as palaeontologists attending the premier in London recently were heavily critical of it). The females also had larger pelvises than the males, which naturally fits with their need to lay eggs. For more info on pterosaur sex, see here. For the press release, see here.

Palaeobiology is important for conservation


For a while now I have been making the claim that palaeobiology is important for our understanding of how organisms respond to environmental change and that this data is important for conservation efforts. (I most often make this claim to creationists when they claim evolutionary biology is not fruitful.) It is good to see that this is occurring, see here.

Two oxygen related stories for the price of one


It turns out that the early oceans were oxygen-free, which puts considerable constraints on what sort of life can exist. This helps explain why the Earth has been barren with regards to complex life for the majority of its history. See here. Oxygen has also impacted the early evolution of animals more than we realised as it has fluctuated a fair bit. See here.

Pterygotus dethroned

Last summer, while volunteering at Doncaster museum, I had the pleasure of carefully examining and photographing around twenty eurypterid fossils. Eurypterids are extinct sea scorpions, one group of which - the pterygotids - grew incredibly large, reaching lengths of eight or nine feet. All of the pterygotids I looked at were tiny in comparison, but they are still a fascinating group. It has long been thought that Pterygotus was a terror of the Silurian seas, the top predator, causing chaos as it consumed other hard-bodied prey with ease. Attenborough's recent documentary, First Life, depicted them this way, surprising other eurypterids by snapping them up voraciously. This view is already out of date. A study has shown that they would not have had the strength to do this and had limited movement. Instead they could only have preyed on small, soft-bodied animals, and may even have been scavengers or herbivores.

Their sheer size has led to at least one imaginative rendering:

Palaeontologising and Mineralogising...

I made some more images, enjoy:

Ah, geologising...

Also, happy new year. Should I get back to blogging again? I've neglected it so much that I don't know where to start.

Pterosaurs are not dinosaurs!

Just a quick little rant, as I saw two articles discussing Mark Witton's latest paper on pterosaur flight, referring to them as dinosaurs.

The Sun went with "How dinos soared.." and declared that "WINGED dinosaurs WERE capable of flight". This deplorable article can be seen here.

The Telegraph went for "Dinosaur the size of a giraffe could fly across continents" though oddly enough the article is not too bad as it pretty much just quotes Mark constantly, see here.

So, for the last time, PTEROSAURS ARE NOT DINOSAURS!!!

The artwork featured with the articles.

Not long ago I blogged about how pterosaurs took off, based on the writing of Mark Witton. See here.

Googling "fossil plants" has interesting results...

Some time last week I was busy searching Google, not for fossil plants, but for something else (should I offer a prize for anyone who guesses?). As I typed in "fossil pla..." Google naturally tried to pre-empt me with fossil plants, allowing me to see something which amused me greatly:

Zoom in if you have to, as the first image that comes up is not a fossil plant, but a crinoid. I don't know how many palaeontologists joke about crinoids being flowers, but it is a habit amongst my group of friends, so finding this was hilarious. We have a crinoid loving mate, who naturally was tagged in this image on Facebook. Ah Google, how I love thee....

I also love the irony of the fact that I am one of the main people to mock crinoids by calling them flowers, when I actually do like them and am obsessed with Ediacaran forms, many of which are frond-like and are easily mistaken for plants (my girlfriend, to my dismay, exclaimed that Charnia was a leaf as we were watching First Life).

Dolomite? Pretty?

Whenever I hear the word "dolomite" I want to run away. I don't know any palaeontologist who likes the stuff and I feel like it has been following me around a fair bit. Back home I live on top of the Magnesian Limestone, which is dolomite, and because of that fossils are sparse. Dolomite is limestone which has been altered (to simplify a tad) and the process is not good for any fossils in the rock. Dolomite was also heavily present during my mapping trip in Spain, though it did give quite a dramatic landscape.

The dolomite ridge known as "Las Cuchilleras". 

Even though the dolomite has created some interesting topography, I still couldn't have imagined anyone thinking of it as nice to look at. Until today that is. We were shown images of the results of cathodoluminescence on dolomite:

On the left are the samples before luminescence. 

How nice are they! To me they conjure up images of the classical understanding of Hell, the sort found in Dante's Inferno. Have some more:

Oldest Fossil Terrestrial Vertebrate Embryos Found! (they're dinosaurs too...)

Found in South Africa, the fossilised eggs date back to the Jurassic, 190 million years ago, and are a dinosaur known as Massospondylus, a prosauropod. They were discovered during preparation, which required high powered microscopes to achieve. Their exceptional preservation allowed for full reconstruction, giving incredible insight into dinosaur ontogeny. The almost hatchlings show how much of the skeleton had become bone and show that dinosaurs began life much like we do - with odd proportions. They had disproportionally large heads and walked on all fours, whereas their older form used bipedal locomotion to get around. They also had shorter necks and this data suggests that their necks and hind limbs grew faster than their heads and forelimbs during their life.

They also lacked teeth, which when combined with the awkward body proportions suggests that they received parental care after hatching (unlike pterosaurs which could fly soon after hatching). If so, then this is not only the oldest example of terrestrial vertebrate embryos and of dinosaur embryos, but also the oldest record of parental care. 

For more, see this press release.

Frustration is spelled T-H-R-U-H-Z-D-R-A-Y-S-H-U-N

On Saturday I had to pop upstairs in the student union for a band photo-shoot (shudder) and ended up waiting for a bit in 3rd space, an area for just chilling out, maybe working, things like that. It turned out that it was Dino Day, an event organised mostly for kids in honour of the dinosaur statue which was destroyed a couple of months ago. There were pretty girls painting dinosaurs on faces, activities to take part in, pictures to draw, things to make and whatever else you might expect from such a day. How could it go wrong?

Where I was sitting there were word-searches with dinosaur themed words. I chuckled at the fact that they used the American spelling of palaeontologist (spelled paleontologist) and jokingly corrected it. I then noticed that the artwork of a course-mate was on display, so I wandered over to admire them and peruse the other information. I was horrified. Spelling mistakes were rife and factual errors abounded. If I had a pen on me I would have scribbled all over it. I thankfully don't remember what many of the errors were, though spelling Mesozoic as "Mesozaic" is forgiveable, as long as you don't also add "Palaeozaic" and "Cenozaic" as well, which they did! I also cannot fathom how they ended up calling Gallimimus an oviraptor.....

Such lack of care by the student union is surprising, considering many of the mistakes could easily be corrected with a simple spell checker and the use of children's books on dinosaurs. Or they could have made use of the roughly 50 palaeontologists wandering around the university (1 professor, around 3 lecturers, a couple of post-doc researchers on a good day, a couple of doctoral and masters students, plus  around 40 undergrads). If only one had gotten involved then such mistakes would not have been made. *sigh*

First Thoughts on First Life

Sir David Attenborough's newest documentary, First Life, has just aired on BBC2 and naturally I watched it excitedly. I've not seen the Ediacaran fossils covered properly in a documentary, even though Attenborough has looked at some of them before. The last time I saw them getting a good mention was when the delectable Liz Bonnin looked at them in Bang Goes the Theory, but that did not give them much coverage. The latest series of Sir David made them the main focus, touted as the first examples of complex life and of our own animal kingdom. There is another episode to come next week and accompanying the series is a book which I intend to read and review at some point. Until then I shall provide a very brief review of the episode I just watched.

Sir David Attenborough and Charnia masoni. 

When watching documentaries about a subject I am fond of I have a bad habit of trying to predict what they are about to say, so when I come away having learnt a few things I love it. This is often true of Attenborough documentaries, which he narrates over stunning visuals which keep us gripped. I am pleased to say that I learnt a few things. I have not yet got to grips with how the Ediacaran forms relate to each other temporally, which this documentary did well, introducing the fractal and frondose forms first, ghost-like in appearance and living in the deep sea (they say quite confidently what colour they might have been, which bugged me a little). I didn't even know just how big Charnia could grow, as I was more familiar with the classic Charnwood forest example. It was also mentioned that the fractal form of Fractofusus used only 6 to 8 genetic commands, something I would love to know more about.

Fractofusus from Mistaken Point.

They then moved forward in time, showing the shallow water icons of Ediacara such as Spriggina, Dickinsonia and Kimberella. This is where I started to disagree with them a little. They showed a beautiful Dickinsonia which appears to be at the end of a trail (making it a mortichinia trace) showing that it was mobile, though likely very slow. This is another thing I know little about, so I can't comment right now. Whenever Spriggina was mentioned I was not as impressed, for they kept referring to it as bilateral even though it shows glide symmetry, in which each side is slightly offset and not an exact mirror image. The animations showed it as some sort of proto-arthropod confidently moving around, which is hardly surprising with Jim Gehling as an advisor. I'm not completely against this interpretation as it is a simple shoehorn, but it is not without its difficulties. Kimberella on the other hand is one I don't mind being shoehorned, as its morphology and likely radula marks do make it seem very molluscan.

Before the documentary was shown in full I watched a few clips on Youtube, one of which intrigued me rather a lot and made me quite sceptical. Mary Droser was shown discussing Funisia, a fossil which she claims as the first providing evidence of sexual reproduction. The clip showed that the evidence for this were clusters of traces which varied little in size, showing that they were of the same age. At first I couldn't figure out why this would indicate sexual reproduction, so it was fortunate that the documentary showed why. Corals reproduce in the same way, occasionally asexually, but then sometimes sending out large amounts of sperm and eggs to found new colonies, all of which would be the same age, just like the Funisia found. See here for a little more.

Funisia fossils and a reconstruction.

The next really fascinating bit showed the research of Phil Donoghue from the University of Bristol, using an enormous synchrotron to look at fossil embryos. Using the powerful technology he is able to see the developing organism inside the egg sac, even after half a billion years. The reconstructions show that the worm inside had teeth at the front and a gut running right through the middle. This thing was both complex and predatory. Early embryos are yet another area I really need to look into, perhaps I could pester him in Bristol when I go next week.....

Overall the documentary is well worth watching; as ever the visuals are great, the reconstructions are not amazing but are quite fascinating, the insight is excellent and the fossils are beautifully filmed. Although I disagree with some aspects I know that is inevitable when it comes to Ediacarans and I learnt a lot from this, giving me new areas to research. If you missed it, then BBC iPlayer is your new best friend.

Seeing Dinosaurs in a New Light

A controversial view in dinosaurology is the idea that the king of the tyrant lizards itself, Tyrannosaurus rex, was a scavenger rather than the expert hunter we all think of. If you want to annoy dinosaur palaeontologists, then express this as your own view and watch their blood boil. (For the record I do believe it scavenged, a lot too, but also hunted as it would have been very opportunistic and from time to time likely did not have to fight too much for its food, stealing off of others instead, but I have digressed from the point.) Another interesting view, one which I have only just stumbled upon and which, as far as I am aware, has not been published on, is the idea of those peaceful, grazing ceratopsians (Triceratops and friends) as omnivores, tearing the flesh off of carrion violently every now and again.

I found this idea when I saw an article on the Guardian website about dinosaurs having feathers, where the accompanying artwork by Mark Witton showed a Styracosaurus albertensis depicted scavenging a dead tyrannosaur. Some of the comments show that people found this outrageous, but when he first drew the picture he spent time justifying it, as you can see on his Flickr site.

I must admit that I like the idea, as the line between carnivory and herbivory is blurred in extant animals, with many herbivores occasionally eating meat, especially those which require a lot of calcium - acquiring it by munching on bones now and again. Ceratopsians appear to have had jaws which would have been quite effective at devouring flesh, perhaps even being overkill if used solely on plants. Of course, it is not being suggested that they only ate meat, far from it, but that they might occasionally have tore into some flesh if they happened upon it, giving them a more balanced diet. An implication of this is that they may have been much more aggressive creatures, as opposed to the docile grazers we usually imagine. Most large herbivores, not least the hippo, are quite aggressive creatures, especially when the need calls for it. Imagining a herd of Triceratops fighting over a carcass is quite thrilling compared to the classic plant munching and may even have actually happened.

For some interesting discussion about this, also see the Tet Zoo blog which featured the image and read the ensuing discussion here.

A Luis Rey image with some bone munching going on.

Mystery Solved!

In my previous post I finally talked about my trips to France and Spain, which I really should have finished a long time ago. Whilst there my girlfriend stumbled across something which had me baffled. Whilst walking in the field next to where our tents were pitched, she suddenly asked me if she had found a fossil. At the time I laughed but almost immediately saw what she meant:

I was quite baffled by it. I could tell it was not a body fossil, but there was the thought that it could be a trace fossil, a remnant of animal activity. The near regularity of the ridges were what intrigued me, especially when I found another (sadly not pictured) which matched. I knew of no mineral process which could result in this and wondered if it might be some bizarre sedimentary structure which I had not come across.

It is two months since this was found and the study I have done in that time would have enabled me to say that it is neither a trace fossil nor a sedimentary structure. It is, however, possibly a result of animal activity. I had it looked at and was told that it is most likely the result of stone age man making flint axes, something my girlfriend found more exciting than fossils. In order to confirm it I would need to have it looked at by an archaeologist who knows a thing or two about flint carving. To round off, here is Lizzie posing with the find: