Oldest Fossils of Large Seaweeds, Possible Animals Tell Story About Oxygen in an Ancient Ocean

[Moontanman]

Oldest Fossils of Large Seaweeds, Possible Animals Tell Story About Oxygen in an Ancient Ocean

 

These images are part and counterpart of a macroscopic Lantian fossil, probably a seaweed, with differentiated morphologies including a distinct root-like holdfast to secure the organism on sea bottom, a conical stem, and a crown of ribbon-like structures. Scale bar is 1 centimeter. (Credit: Photo by Zhe Chen)

 

ScienceDaily (Feb. 19, 2011) — Almost 600 million years ago, before the rampant evolution of diverse life forms known as the Cambrian explosion, a community of seaweeds and worm-like animals lived in a quiet deep-water niche under the sea near what is now Lantian, a small village in Anhui Province of South China. Then they simply died, leaving some 3,000 nearly pristine fossils preserved between beds of black shale deposited in oxygen-free waters.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110216132032.htm