Fossils
The boundary between the Precambrian and Cambrian is demarcated by the presence of trace fossils of Treptichnus pedum, one of the earliest animals. Without any hard anatomical features, Treptichnus is known only by its distinctive burrow pattern, which can be seen at Fortune Head.
Fortune Head records the beginning of a period of increasing biological diversity known as the "Cambrian explosion", and it exhibits a number of other Cambrian and Precambrian fossils, including early shell fossils, vendotaenid algae, soft-bodied megafossils, and microfossils. Below Treptichnus, the stratotype at Fortune Head includes traces of the arthropod Monomorphichnus, vertical dwelling burrows from Skolithes and Arenicolites, cnidarian resting burrows from Conichnus and Bergauria, and more intricate feeding burrows from Gyrolithes. More complex fossils appear later.
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Famous quotes containing the word fossils:
“In early times, before the floods swept across the world, there was life, albeit odd, as one can see from the fossils of mammoth bones, and there was the regime of Prince Metternich.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“You can hardly convince a man of an error in a life-time, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be. The geologists tell us that it took one hundred years to prove that fossils are organic, and one hundred and fifty more to prove that they are not to be referred to the Noachian deluge.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)