What are the Oldest Macroscopic Fossils?
The oldest macroscopic body fossils date back to the ancient Ediacaran period, which extended from 635 to 542 million years ago. The oldest known megafossil site is the Twitya Formation in the Mackenzie mountains of northwestern Canada, with fossils dated from 610 to 600 million years ago. The extreme age of these fossils is truly remarkable: to put things in perspective, for over a hundred years, it was thought that the Cambrian Period (starting 542 million years ago) contained the oldest multicellular fossils. It wasn’t until 1957 until it was realized that complex life could have been around for a few dozen million years prior to that. The Twitya formation fossils are older than the second-oldest megafossil site by a factor of more than 5 million years. The next oldest is the Drook Formation from southeast Newfoundland, with estimated ages of 595 to 565 million years. The Twitya and Drook megafossils bear a resemblance to cnidarians – sea pens – quilted, bilateral frond-like animals
The oldest macroscopic body fossils date back to the ancient Ediacaran period, which extended from 635 to 542 million years ago. The oldest known megafossil site is the Twitya Formation in the Mackenzie mountains of northwestern Canada, with fossils dated from 610 to 600 million years ago. The extreme age of these fossils is truly remarkable: to put things in perspective, for over a hundred years, it was thought that the Cambrian Period (starting 542 million years ago) contained the oldest multicellular fossils. It wasn’t until 1957 until it was realized that complex life could have been around for a few dozen million years prior to that. The Twitya formation fossils are older than the second-oldest megafossil site by a factor of more than 5 million years. The next oldest is the Drook Formation from southeast Newfoundland, with estimated ages of 595 to 565 million years. The Twitya and Drook megafossils bear a resemblance to cnidarians — sea pens — quilted, bilateral frond-like a
