Ediacaran Period

Ediacaran Period, uppermost division of the Proterozoic Eon of Precambrian time and latest of the three periods of the Neoproterozoic Era, extending from approximately 635 million to 541 million years ago. The Ediacaran followed the Cryogenian Period (approximately 720 million to approximately 635 million years ago) and was succeeded by the Fortunian Age (541 million to approximately 529 million years ago) of the Cambrian Period (541 million to 485.4 million years ago). The Ediacaran Period produced some of the earliest known evidence of the evolution of multicellular animals (the metazoans). The predominant Ediacara fauna in the fossil record is a group of unusual soft-bodied (invertebrate) forms that predated the Cambrian explosion—the unparalleled emergence of organisms between 541 million and approximately 530 million years ago that included representatives of many major phyla still extant today.

The onset of the Ediacaran Period coincided with the rapid retreat of ice sheets and glaciers associated with the Marinoan (or Varanger-Marinoan) glaciation—which began near the end of the Cryogenian Period and ended approximately 635 million years ago—and declines in the carbon isotope composition of marine rocks. Oxygen levels rose in the atmosphere and in the oceans, and many scholars suggest that the change in carbon isotopes can be attributed to the oxidation of dissolved organic carbon in marine environments. The end of the Ediacaran Period, however, was determined using a biological marker, the lowermost boundary of the trace fossil Trichophycus pedum.

The Ediacaran Period was marked by considerable tectonic activity, including the end of the Pan-African episode—a long interval of mountain building, rifting, and reorganization spanning most of the Neoproterozoic Era. About 600 million years ago a vast, more-discrete mountain-building event (called the Pan-African orogeny) began. That event (which was actually a series of smaller orogenies) occurred when the two blocks of the former supercontinent Rodinia collided with a craton (the stable interior portion of a continent) that would become the present-day Congo region. Thus was formed a new supercontinent, Pannotia, which was centred near the planet’s South Pole. Pannotia remained intact until about 550 million years ago when it too began to rift, breaking apart into the continental blocks of Laurentia, Siberia, Baltica, and Gondwana (an ancient supercontinent in its own right that incorporated present-day South America, Africa, Arabia, Madagascar, India, Australia, and Antarctica) and forming the Iapetus Ocean, which became a significant paleogeographic feature of the Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian periods.

The Ediacara fauna, the faunal assemblage that characterized the period, was named for the Ediacara Hills of South Australia, where a large group of early metazoans that required atmospheric oxygen for growth was discovered in 1946. The Ediacara fauna is thought to have first appeared more than 600 million years ago, sometime after the conclusion of the Marinoan glaciation, and perhaps the evolution of these animals was coupled with rising oxygen levels in the water near the ocean’s surface. Evidence of the Ediacara fauna was found as impressions of bloblike animals or more-symmetrical forms reminiscent of modern jellyfish, worms, and sponges. Fossils of such characteristic Ediacaran animals have been excavated from more than 30 locations on all continents except Antarctica. More than 1,500 well-preserved specimens have been collected from the Ediacara Hills alone, resulting in the naming of more than 60 species and 30 genera.

Traditionally, scientists believed that these unusual invertebrate forms were unique to the period, both evolving and passing away between the Ediacaran’s onset and conclusion. However, the length of time all Ediacaran animals existed on Earth (as well as whether these animals were indeed invertebrates) has become a matter of debate. Some studies have revealed the presence of Ediacaran animals in Cambrian sediments, and at least one study has produced evidence of invertebrate metazoans in sediments dating to more than 760 million years ago. Other studies report the presence of fossils containing skeletal structures (made up of what appears to be either biomineralized material or chitin) in Ediacaran rocks.