Scientists have found fossils of 550 million year old organisms in limestones located in China. These fossils represent some of the earliest evidence of complex life forms yet discovered. “We think that the fossils were preserved where they lived,” Chuanming Zhou, of the Nanjing Instititue of Geology and Paleontology, said. “In other words, they had not been transported a long way from their deathbed to their graveyard. And the way they occur in the rocks suggests that they were flat-lying organisms sprawling on the ocean floor 550 million years ago, much like some fungi, lichen, or algae do today.”
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1 comment
Tuesday, July 19, 2005 at 2:26 pm
Dave
Another article that was just posted today is located here from Astrobiology Magazine. It contains quite a bit more information.