Early life forms may have been terrestrial | Reduction

Early life forms may have been terrestrial

Rangeland Days / Soils Days 2012 by NRCS SD
License (according to Flickr): Attribution-ShareAlike License

Excerpt:

550-million-year-old fossils of Dickinsonia and Parvancorina from South Australia lie in rock textured like old elephant skin. That texture might indicate fossilized soil from land, suggests a new study that challenges the prevailing view that the Ediacaran fossils were all sea creatures. G. Retallack Some of the fossils celebrated as sea life’s big breakout beyond mere soups and slimes might actually have dwelled on land, argues a controversial new study. Named the Ediacaran fauna after Australia’s Ediacara Hills, these creatures dating from roughly 575 million to 542 million years ago mark life finally growing beyond the microscopic. Found in some 30 locations around the world, Ediacarans grew in discs, fronds and other fairly simple shapes with a quilted look, and paleontologists usually consider them some sort of marine creatures.

Keywords:

Retallack soils fossils Ediacarans new study old elephant skin Ediacaran Ediacaran fossils land ancient soils rocks sea tiny tubes G. Retallack longtime Ediacaran researcher Gregory Retallack specimens Retallack Ediacaran rock details Tempe. Retallack controversial new study South Australia lie new detailed analysis seed-making land plants fairly simple shapes bumpy elephant-skin texture geologist Paul Knauth Australian geological formations Arizona State University shallow marine settings 550-million-year-old fossils Ediacaran fauna modern fungal filaments life fossilized soil sea life sea creatures Australian Ediacarans mere soups Ediacara Hills big breakout organisms new results sea animals marine creatures Queen s University ancient environments quilted look flawed assumptions land-living lichens big organisms

People:

Gregory Retallack

Overall Sentiment: -0.095623

Relevance: 0.815496

Shuhai Xiao

Overall Sentiment: -0.445971

Relevance: 0.231997

Mary Droser

Overall Sentiment: -0.150928

Relevance: 0.216241

Sentiment	Quote
0	“Where most of the fossils occur are not beds that anyone would consider anything but shallow marine,” she says. ...
0	“Biology matters,” Droser says: ...
-0.0691248	“Biology matters,” Droser says: Organisms have physiological limits and “cannot live both in the deep sea and in soils, they cannot live on land and in shallow marine settings.”
Sentiment Stats:	Number of Quotes: 3 Aggregate Sentiment: -0.0691248 Mean: -0.0230416 Standard Deviation: 1.4142135623731

Guy Narbonne

Overall Sentiment: 0.190353

Relevance: 0.209738

Ediacara Hills

Overall Sentiment: -0.244091

Relevance: 0.2041

Paul Knauth

Overall Sentiment: 0.0581776

Relevance: 0.195823

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Controversial theory suggests early life forms were land-dwellers

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Early life forms may have been terrestrial

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Full Content: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/347062/title/Early_life_forms_may_have_been_terrestrial

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