Ediacaran Fossils

Take a minute to meet Dr. Guy Narbonne, who was featured in the Fossil's podacst.

Where do you work?

Professor and Research Chair, Department of Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering, Queen's University, in Ontario, Canada.

What do you study?

I study the early evolution of animals and their ecosystems.

What are three titles you would give yourself?

Paleontologist, geologist, husband and father. I'm also a gourmet cook, but mostly for my family.

What do you like to do when you are not working?

Research on Ediacaran life requires a lot of fieldwork in remote areas around the world, which provides a nice counterpoint to my teaching and labwork in a university setting.  

What do you like most about science?

I immensely enjoy the thrill of scientific discovery, and the joy of communicating these new discoveries through scientific publications, lectures, and public outreach.  Teaching my 1st year course in History of Life to students from every department across campus also provides me with a geat deal of joy.

Here you will find intriguing extras: segments our producers weren't able to fit into a five-minute podcast as well as images, interesting facts and ways to get involved or in touch with biodiversity wherever you live.

Resources

Visit the Advent of Complex Life website to learn more about the environmental, ecological and genetic factors that lead to the evolution of complex life on earth. This project is part of the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

Images

View photos from Ari’s trip to Mistaken Point in Newfoundland.

Photo Credit: Ari Daniel Shapiro

See a gallery of Ediacaran fossils at the Advent of Complex LifeDesk. LifeDesks are web environments that allow scientists to share biodiversity research and collaborate on classification—especially important with organisms as poorly understood at the Ediacaran fauna. You can learn more about the LifeDesks project and the EOL partner behind them at LifeDesks.org.

Audio

Can’t get enough of the Precambrian? Listen to our earlier podcast about the Ediacaran fauna. 

Facts

Trepassia wardae is named for its discoverer, Kit Ward’s son, Bradley. In 1956, on the other side of the Atlantic, a British teenager discovered a fossil of a different Precambrian creature called Charnia. (You can read Tina Negus’s account of her find here.) Charnia is found at Mistaken Point alongside Trepassia. Because central England and Newfoundland once were neighbors during the late Precambrian, Charnia is represented in fossil deposits on both sides of the ocean.

Other fossils known from Mistaken Point include frondlike animals from the genus Fractofusus and Thectardis, a cone-shaped mat-sticker, so-called because it stuck to the mat of microbes that covered the sea floor during the Precambrian.

Disk-shaped depressions visible in the fossil beds of Mistaken Point may represent holdfasts that allowed animals like Trepassia to grip the ancient seabed. Living animals that use holdfasts include feather stars, kelp and other algae, sea fans, and sponges.