‘To the question of why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these…periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer’.

These words, written by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species in 1859, summarise what has come to be known as ‘Darwin’s Dilemma’ – the lack of fossils in sediment from the Precambrian (c. 4500 – 542 Mya). If Darwin’s theory of natural selection was right, life evolved gradually over millions of years. However, the Cambrian period, which began around 542 million years ago, seemed to herald a sudden rapid increase in species diversity, an event which has come to be known as the ‘Cambrian explosion’.

Darwin could find no evidence for fossils prior to the Cambrian, and the mystery has continued to perplex palaeontologists. The study, carried out by Richard H. T. Ballow and Martin D. Brasier at the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, focused on a rock formation from Shropshire, England, known as the Longmyndian Supergroup. These rocks had been examined in Darwin’s time by the geologist J. W. Salter, who suspected them of containing records of Precambrian life, but he was unable to identify anything beyond ‘trace fossils’: unusual markings which may have been left behind by organisms.

The study used Salter’s collection as well as fresh samples from the Longmyndian Supergroup, and identified microscopic fossils of exceptional preservation. The fossils represent a wide array of microbial life from the Ediacaran period, the period immediately preceding the Cambrian (630 – 542 Mya). They were preserved in a number of ways. Some had been compressed under layers of sediment until they formed a thin film of carbon residue on the surface of the rock. Others were preserved in three dimensions and are thought to have undergone permineralisation, a process where water containing minerals seeps into the spaces within an organism and evaporates, leaving behind mineral deposits which build up into a hard fossil. Some had also been preserved as impressions and moulds within layers of sediment, appearing as sharp ridges on bedding planes, or as their equivalent negative impressions.

It is not clear how the microbes kept themselves alive. As they lived in shallow marine environments, they may have survived either by converting light into energy in a similar way to plants, or by converting organic substances into energy as animals and humans do. Suggestions as to what organisms they might be related to include algae, fungi or a wide variety of other filamentous bacteria.

Darwin himself was confident that fossils from the Precambrian would eventually be found, believing it to be a time when ‘the world swarmed with living creatures’. Although the importance of the Longmyndian supergroup in solving the dilemma has been recognised since Darwin first identified the puzzle, it is only now, with more sophisticated techniques for examining specimens, that the secrets of the Longmyndian rocks and their exceptionally preserved fossils can be uncovered.

Story Source:

Materials provided by The Geological Society of London. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

1. Richard H. T. Callow and Martin D. Brasier. A solution to Darwin's dilemma of 1859: exceptional preservation in Salter's material from the late Ediacaran Longmyndian Supergroup, England. Journal of the Geological Society, Vol. 166, 2009, pp 1-4