Avalon explosion

Dickinsonia, an enigmatic quilted organism with glide symmetry which may have been an early animal
Cloudina may have been one of the first mineralized animals to appear, although its life appearance and evolutionary affinities remain unknown.[1]
Kimberella was originally interpreted as a cubozoan cnidarian, although it is now believed it was an early mollusc.[2]
The Ediacaran trace fossils are a sign of animal movement as well as sediment disturbance, they show possible signs of the earliest true animals.

The Avalon explosion, named from the Precambrian faunal trace fossils discovered on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, eastern Canada, is a proposed evolutionary radiation of prehistoric animals about 575 million years ago in the Ediacaran period, with the Avalon explosion being one of three eras grouped in this time period.[3] This evolutionary event is believed to have occurred some 33 million years earlier than the Cambrian explosion, which had been long thought to be when complex life started on Earth.

Scientists are still unsure of the full extent behind the development of the Avalon explosion,[3] which resulted in a rapid increase in metazoan biodiversity, including the first appearance of some extant infrakingdoms/superphyla such as cnidarians and bilaterians. Many of the Avalon explosion animals are sessile soft-bodied organisms living in deep marine environments,[4] and the first stages of the Avalon explosion were observed through comparatively minimal species.[3]

  1. ^ Porter, S.M. (1 June 2007). "Seawater Chemistry and Early Carbonate Biomineralization". Science. 316 (5829): 1302. Bibcode:2007Sci...316.1302P. doi:10.1126/science.1137284. PMID 17540895. S2CID 27418253.
  2. ^ Wade, M. (1972). "Hydrozoa and Scyphozoa and other medusoids from the Precambrian Ediacara fauna, South Australia" (PDF). Palaeontology. 15: 197–225. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 April 2011.
  3. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference Shen2007 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).