SA fossil site competing for World Heritage status
A discovery that changed the understanding of life is being remembered 80 years on as the grounds it was discovered on competes for World Heritage.
Geologists compare it to an outcrop of gold.
But when a fossil of the oldest complex living life form was first discovered in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges, it initially didn’t receive the attention it warranted.
In 1946, geologist Reg Sprigg documented the oldest evidence of multicellular life dating back 555 million years.
Appearing as imprints of leaves on hard sandstone, the discovery of Ediacara biota broke a scientific taboo that there was no complex life before the Cambrian epoch – a period that spawned an explosion in ancient marine species.
The soft-bodied creatures that lived on microbial mats on shallow sea floor still raise questions.
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Scientists initially struggled to come to terms with the discovery, South Australian Museum senior researcher Diego Garcia-Bellido said.
To mark 80 years since the discovery, the Adelaide University associate professor lead a panel of experts featuring Sprigg’s son, Doug Sprigg, at the museum this week.
Assoc Prof Garcia-Bellido said Reg Sprigg didn’t get the response he’d hoped for to his discovery so moved on.
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“Fossils were a sort of a side dish to him. He just happened to do that very well,” he said.
“It was so unexpected that most … of his peers, were saying that it can’t be. This is too old to have multicellular life. It cannot be an animal.”
Ediacaran fossils have now been discovered in every continent except Antarctica.
More than 58,000 hectares of Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park, Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park, Nilpena Ediacara National Park and pastoral leases including Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary have also been nominated for UNESCO World Heritage listing.
Having visited other world heritage sites in China’s Cheng Juang and Canada’s Newfoundland, Prof Garcia-Bellido says South Australia has a strong case.
“In terms of early animal complex life, this is even bigger in a sense because we’ve got a longer, really well presented package,” he said.
-with AAP
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