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Researchers at the University of Missouri have discovered rare, fossilized embryos that may provide valuable insight into a time of rapid expansion and diversification among the world's first organisms, according to a release from the school.
Known as the "Cambrian explosion," most of the world's marine invertebrates first appeared in the fossil record during this period. While much of the record is comprised of skeletal structures - which may or may not give researchers an accurate picture of prehistoric organisms - the University of Missouri find includes previously undiscovered soft-tissue fossils, which could help with future interpretations of evolutionary history.
His team, which includes Missouri University doctoral student Jesse Broce, now is studying fossilized embryos in rocks that provide rare opportunities to study the origins and developmental biology of early animals during the Cambrian explosion.
Broce collected fossils from the lower Cambrian Shuijingtuo Formation in the Hubei Province in southern China and analyzed samples to determine the chemical makeup of the rocks. Soft tissue fossils have different chemical patterns than harder, skeletal remains, allowing researchers to identify the processes that contributed to their preservation.
"Something obviously went wrong in these fossils," Schiffbauer said. "Our Earth has a pretty good way of cleaning up after things die. Here, the cells' self-destructive mechanisms didn't happen, and these soft tissues could be preserved. While studying the fossils we collected, we found over 140 spherically shaped fossils, some of which include features that are reminiscent of division stage embryos, essentially frozen in time."
The next steps will be to identify the parents of the discovered embryos and their place on the evolutionary timeline.
http://www.natureworldnews.com/arti...r-old-embryos-provide-key-early-evolution.htm
Known as the "Cambrian explosion," most of the world's marine invertebrates first appeared in the fossil record during this period. While much of the record is comprised of skeletal structures - which may or may not give researchers an accurate picture of prehistoric organisms - the University of Missouri find includes previously undiscovered soft-tissue fossils, which could help with future interpretations of evolutionary history.
His team, which includes Missouri University doctoral student Jesse Broce, now is studying fossilized embryos in rocks that provide rare opportunities to study the origins and developmental biology of early animals during the Cambrian explosion.
Broce collected fossils from the lower Cambrian Shuijingtuo Formation in the Hubei Province in southern China and analyzed samples to determine the chemical makeup of the rocks. Soft tissue fossils have different chemical patterns than harder, skeletal remains, allowing researchers to identify the processes that contributed to their preservation.
"Something obviously went wrong in these fossils," Schiffbauer said. "Our Earth has a pretty good way of cleaning up after things die. Here, the cells' self-destructive mechanisms didn't happen, and these soft tissues could be preserved. While studying the fossils we collected, we found over 140 spherically shaped fossils, some of which include features that are reminiscent of division stage embryos, essentially frozen in time."
The next steps will be to identify the parents of the discovered embryos and their place on the evolutionary timeline.
http://www.natureworldnews.com/arti...r-old-embryos-provide-key-early-evolution.htm
