This #FossilFriday: myself and a recent student looking at #Fractofusus up close at #MistakenPoint, working out branching details in a particularly well-preserved specimen. Thanks to @dmcediacaran.bsky.social for the photo. :) #FractofususFriday
Dr. Rod Taylor
@fossilrod.bsky.social
Palaeontologist, science interpreter, nature lover and music collector.
This #FossilFriday: Haootia quadriformis, one of the oldest muscular animal ever discovered (from #Ediacaran rocks in #Newfoundland). The left image shows the holotype fossil with the body elements coloured for clarity; the right (© Robert Nicholls) shows a reconstruction of the living animal.
This #FossilFriday, it's an #Edicaran tangle from Mistaken Point! The disc at the base of this Arborea spinosa is unusually large given the size of the frond; there are also several Fractofusus here, as well as a Thectardis and a small Plumeropriscum. Happy Friday! #FractofususFriday
It’s #FossilFriday! I spent today with #Ediacaran guru Duncan McIlroy exploring another recently discovered Ediacaran fossil locality in #Newfoundland, looking for fossils that might help us work out its environment 500+ million years ago. Yes, it was a very good day. 😁
Happy Fossil Friday! This weeks offering is news that the Inner Meadow site is now 774 sq ft. comparable to the main E -Surface at Mistaken Point & much more diverse. We also found the first convincing #Hadryniscala which has small lateral bars on a strap like form a bit like a seaweed.
It's #FossilFriday! Here's the #Ediacaran E surface at #MistakenPoint in #Newfoundland, showing two curved #Fractofusus misrai and an #Arborea spinosa. The top right & bottom edges show the overlying ash that buried these animals, preserving them for half a billion years! #FractofususFriday
Happy #FossilFriday!! Today is brought to you by superposition of #Ediacaran fossils. Throughout Avalonia the genera that lie atop other frondose organisms are Arborea & Primocandelabrum. Fractofusus overgrow ivesheadiomorph necromass but #rangeomorpha like Charnia and Trepassia never overlie other
Another #FossilFriday offering from recently uncovered #Ediacaran rocks at #InnerMeadow of #Newfoundland! :)
Duncan McIlroy@dmcediacaran.bsky.social · last mo.Happy #FossilFriday from the #Ediacaran of #InnerMeadow. This week i would like to share something newly uncovered & new to the site large deep disks, and the charniid #Rangeomorphs Trepassia sp and Charnia gracilis lying next to one another as they have for 551 million years. What a privilege!
This #FossilFriday: the world's oldest known muscular organism, Mamsetia manunis, coloured to show the different muscle bands. This #Ediacaran (c. 565 MYA) aged animal, described by our research group in 2024, was found near Port Union in #Newfoundland. The adjacent Arborea is a Friday freebie. :)
A #FossilFriday post from @dmcediacaran.bsky.social a couple of weeks ago that I somehow missed...
Duncan McIlroy@dmcediacaran.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis #FossilFriday is brought to you courtesy of the lively new #Ediacaran #rangeomorph Aninoides coombsorum named by @simonrosse.bsky.social. Currently only known from the 551Ma Inner Meadow Lagerstätte in Newfoundland. Same age as the youngest White Sea type biotas in Australia, Russia etc.
I’m a bit late to #FossilFriday today as I’m in the field (literally) clearing at Inner Meadow. But how about a lovely Charnia gracilis to be getting on with. From #InnerMeadow of course.
This #FossilFriday, we go back to the #Ediacaran with #Fractofusus. This image shows several specimens of different size, orientation and levels of detail preserved. The darker sections represent the overlying ash bed that preserved these organisms in such exquisite detail. #fractofususfriday
Happy #FossilFriday from the #Ediacaran at #InnerMeadow. I’ve been focussing on removing boulders and soil the last couple of weeks but this beauty popped out. It is a scan of the natural cast of the base of a large #Aninoides
This #FossilFriday: the new #Ediacaran exhibit at The @johnsongeocentre.bsky.social is finished, and is open to visitors! Thanks to Duncan McIlroy and Robert Nicholls for allowing us to use the artwork and for their support. Come have a look this weekend, if you can. You know you want to. 😁
As tempting as it is to spend all my time in the field at Inner Meadow. This week i went on an Ediacaran adventure up the Bay de Verde Pen. with @jeffontherock.bsky.social looking at the post #KotlinCrisis interval at beautiful sites on the barrens. Access is more open after devastating fires last…
This #FossilFriday, a magnificent specimen of Arborea spinosa (formerly Charniodiscus spinosus) from the 565 million year old #Ediacaran deposits at Mistaken Point, #Newfoundland. And yes, those are Fractofusus misrai specimens around its margins. 😃 #FractofususFriday
In the latest of our string of papers on the new #Ediacaran Inner Meadow Lagerstätte here is an account of the distinctive bubble like textures (paywalled sorry but $$) doi.org/10.1111/sed.... or ask for a copy :-). Recently graduated MSc student Nagi Chida worked on the textures at…, #InnerMeadow
maybe my favorite thing on the internet: neal.fun/deep-sea/
The Deep Sea
Scroll down the deep sea in this interactive page.
neal.fun
This #FossilFriday: where it all began! As a child, I regularly collected Cambrian trilobites at Manuels River with my older brothers. That eventually led me to becoming a palaeontologist and science educator, two roles I dearly love to this day. ❤️
Extraordinary new fossils from Newfoundland reveal an ancient mass extinction worse than the asteroid-driven calamity that killed the dinosaurs. #Paleontology #KotlinCrisis #FossilFriday 🧪🧪 New for @science.org
Earth’s first major extinction was worse than we thought
Fossil finds suggest nearly 80% of life on Earth died some 550 million years ago
science.org
Yet another new #FossilFriday paper! This time just me, but building on work from the MUN Paleobiology Crowd over a number of years. This OA paper outlines the lines of evidence used to determine mode of life of the #Ediacaran #Rangeomorpha. Always careful and objective we work with one
Another #FossilFriday and another new Nfld. Ediacaran for you to enjoy hot off the press. Introducing Arborea elegans. This is the first fossil from a rich new site near #Torbay & #MiddleCove just north of St. John’s. An area always considered unfossiliferous, but discovered by Pascal Olschewski🧵
Earlier this year there was an article on the beautiful new #Ediacaran #Dongpo Biota in China, it has some lovely fossils in it. Well worth a look! There were also some things interpreted as fronds that we consider to be abiogenic uninterrupted Chevron marks. doi.org/10.1016/j.pr...
This #FossilFriday, how about a little look forward in the #Ediacaran to the post Kotlin Crisis extinction event strata in in Newfoundland. doi.org/10.1130/G542... The post-extinction biotas are dominated by discs such as #Aspidella terranovica and the giant protistan #Palaeopascichnus.
Here is a writeup of our work on #Aninoides and how it helped us to uncover a little bit of Beothuk astronomy. Obviously :-) With huge thanks to @julialaite.bsky.social gazette.mun.ca/research/dig...
Digging up history
What do a fossil, a comet and Beothuk history have in common?
gazette.mun.ca
A big post this #FossilFriday, folks! We've just published our paper describing the age of the #Ediacaran Inner Meadow fossil site in #Newfoundland, and it has VERY important ramifications about what we (think we) know about extinction in the Ediacaran...
Duncan McIlroy@dmcediacaran.bsky.social · 6mo agoHappy #FossilFriday how does a thread about the Inner Meadow biota and unexpected age for the fossils, and a refocusing of Martin Brasier’s #KotlinCrisis sound? We’ve been trickling out our findings from Inner Meadow including #Charnia brasieri, #Aninoides and there's even cooler stuff in review. 🧵
Happy #FossilFriday we just got page proofs of our paper on the diversity and geochronology of our #InnerMeadow site so let’s celebrate by sharing the first #Erniettomorph from the #Ediacaran of Newfoundland, #Phyllozoon (right) with a bonus #Bradgatia top left.
This #FossilFriday, we travel to Bay St. George, #Newfoundland for #Carboniferous plants: Lepidodendron tree elements and an unidentified fern. From the exhibits at @johnsongeocentre.bsky.social.
