This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: One of the oldest known 3D fossils of an animal has been discovered in a sheep field in the Norwegian Arctic, the first new major site of its kind anywhere in Europe in decades. The fossil dates from 560 million years ago, during the Ediacaran Period, when complex forms of life first appeared on Earth.
The fossil, known as Charnia, looks more like a fern than anything we would recognize as an animal today. Charnia did not have a mouth, organs or any visible means of movement and was essentially a "goo-filled bag"—like a sedentary jellyfish—however, it is thought to be one of the earliest animals to exist. Many fossils dating from this period in Earth's history are found as flat impressions, like a flower pressed between the pages of a book.
However, the new fossil—the first confirmed Charnia find in Scandinavia—is preserved in three-dimensional detail, which is incredibly rare for soft-bodied organisms, especially of this age. The creature was swept up in an ancient underwater avalanche and quickly buried in the seabed. This filled its body with sediment while preserving its three-dimensional form.
This extraordinary preservation allowed researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, to study it in detail. Their results are reported in the journal Palaeontology. Thanks to the high-quality preservation, the fossil was found to contain subtle ridges, known as "keels," along each of its branches—a feature that had not been detected in other, flatter fossils.
"When you see the same species preserved in a different way, you start noticing properties you hadn't seen before," said lead author Dr. Yorick Veenma, from Cambridge's Department of Earth Sciences. While Ediacaran fossils have been found in different places worldwide, the discovery of a new location in Finnmark, Norway, suggests that the earliest animals may have been far more widely distributed than previously known and that other unexplored areas could hold similar surprises.
"As scientists, we tend to go to the same well-known sites again and again to look for fossils like these," said Veenma. "This find shows that there is still potential for discoveries in less familiar places." The area of Norway where the fossils were found is near an outcrop where hints of Ediacaran life had been seen before, like strange anchoring structures made by organisms as they attached themselves to the ancient seafloor. However, fossils of the organisms themselves had never been found—until a chance find in a sheep field revealed a rich new seam of fossils.
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