Duncan McIlroy

what a beautiful colour 🤯

Interesting palaeopiscatorial thread here.

oh and i should say that the type material of A. elegans was a loose block which is now in The Rooms collected under permit from the Province.

Ediacaran fossils are protected by law can only be studied by permit and landowner permission. There are v. big fines for damaging or removing fossils.

subtriangular multi branched probably rangeomorph frond bradgatia-like foot for scale

poorly preserved Hapsidophyllas with 2 rows of radiating branches foot for scale

Pascal’s PhD involves describing this rich biota along with a new date hopefully coming at the same time later this year. The rest of the biota are mainly Mistaken Point type fossils but not quite as well preserved though much closer to St. John’s!

and free to read here: doi.org/10.1017/S001...

reconstruction of Arborea elegans as a long narrow upright frond on a microbially colonized seafloor (white rings)

Arborea elegans showing long narrow frond with short orthogonal brabches and a wide flat basal disc

Another #FossilFriday and another new Nfld. Ediacaran for you to enjoy hot off the press. Introducing Arborea elegans. This is the first fossil from a rich new site near #Torbay & #MiddleCove just north of St. John’s. An area always considered unfossiliferous, but discovered by Pascal Olschewski🧵

Exceptionally preserved 551-million-year-old site suggests Avalon biota lasted longer Researchers studying the soft-bodied Ediacaran biotas of the world generally accept that there are three distinct assemblages. The 575–560-million-year-old (Ma) Avalon Assemblage is best known from th...

phys.org/news/2026-02...

Introducing the soft-bodied fossil Paleocanna tentaculum n. gen. n. sp., a tube-dwelling medusozoan. The first 3 authors are students.👏

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

broad Charnia frond at the bottom with a narrow frond right at its tip lying in the same orientation

This #FossilFriday is brought to you from the #Ediacaran of #InnerMeadow with the observation that #Charnia brasieri sometimes have #Trepassia like little feathers on top of their fronds. Part of a review paper coming out next week on life attitude of rangeomorphs :-).

bedding surface with large hemispherical Nimbia and several varieties of the chambered Palaeopascichnus gracilis and narrow P. linearis

detail showing the narrow chambered palaeopascichnus linear is

large Aspidella terranovica (oval) much smaller three lobed triforillonia beneath and a variety of chambered protists Palaeopascichnus

It’s midterms here at MUN & with cleanup from a 75cm 2 day snowstorm too it’s been a disrupted week, so a quick #FossilFriday post- #KotlinCrisis bedding plane from Ferryland NL with #Palaeopascichnus, #Aspidella terranovica & #Triforillonia material of Dr Latha Menon (submitting next week!!)

Well said.
Good science stimulates more science :-)

Here’s a link to a 15 min interview i did last week about #Aninoides and a link to the great comets of 1811 and 1819 via the Beothuk woman #Demasduit if you are interested :-)

www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...

kwnsfk27.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F...

A great first collaboration with Jeff Peakall @hyperpycnal.bsky.social
whose work anyone looking at enigmatic bedding plane structures would be well advised to look up :-)

Comparison of the frondose features in the Dongpo Formation with uninterrupted chevron marks (A−D) and the Ediacaran Charnia for comparison (E). (A) Uninterrupted chevron marks from the Carboniferous Gull Island Formation, Ireland (modified from Doyle and Hoey, 2022); (B) and (D) frondose forms from the Dongpo Formation (modified from Wang et al., 2026); (C) uninterrupted chevron marks from the Lower Silurian Aberystwyth Grits, Wales (modified from Dżułyński and Walton, 1965); (E) Charnia ewinoni from the Ediacaran of Newfoundland (modified from Pasinetti et al., 2025). All scale bars are 1 cm. Portions of the branch-like structures highlighted in (B-D), primary branches in (E) are offset not opposite and have second (red) and third order branches (green) highlighted as is typical of Ediacaran rangeomorphs.

Earlier this year there was an article on the beautiful new #Ediacaran #Dongpo Biota in China, it has some lovely fossils in it. Well worth a look!
There were also some things interpreted as fronds that we consider to be abiogenic uninterrupted Chevron marks. doi.org/10.1016/j.pr...

unnamed elongate Arboreomorph frond with broad flat disc numerous small branches arise from a central axis at a high angle

reconstruction of an elongated frondose arboreomorph organism with an inferred upright mode of life. Depicted on a hypothetical deep marine seafloor with patchy white microbial communities

coming soon another new Ediacaran taxon from Newfoundland. This one is an #Arboreomorph from the #Ediacaran of the NE Avalon Peninsula discovered and written up with PhD students Pascal Olschewski @simonrosse.bsky.social. The art needs some work to do justice to the fossil but Happy #FossilFriday!

I can only imagine, it is truly dreadful.

a lobster’s eye view :-). Very fun

It is interesting to note Retallack’s name in the podcast but if is conduct in person is anything like how he publishes his doctrines then i’m not surprised.

The Epstein Files and Paleontology | Weird and Dead Podcast Get more from Weird and Dead Podcast on Patreon

From @geopetalfabric.bsky.social and @maryanningsrevenge.bsky.social.

You can follow the podcast at @weirdanddead.bsky.social.

www.patreon.com/posts/150459...

Agreed. The diversity of the pre Kotlin Crisis interval is so low and the rate of background extinction is basically nonexistent meaning it’s very difficult to compare to the Phanerozoic mass extinctions. Which is why we stopped short of claiming it as such.

Yes we lost the Trilobozoa like tribrachidium (sadly) but also a lot of the frondose genera Rangeomorpha and Arboreomorpha).
We just (last week) extended the range of many taxa from 563 to 560Ma which makes the Kotlin Crisis much more profound. i can send you a pdf if you email or researchgate.

Martin Brasier recognized the event in Avalonia and Baltica (in high latitudes) and called it the Kotlin Crisis and subsequent “Kotlinian Dead Zone” in 1996.
Before it we have the beautiful Rangeomorpha, afterwards just lots of little discs and giant protists.

About 11 million years before the end Ediacaran extinction event and the start of the Cambrian radiation of animals, the earliest animal faunas experienced their first extinction at 550 million years ago. We lost a lot of the stranger Ediacarans then but the animal ancestors made it through.

ovoid Aspidella terranovica with central groove next to 3 lobed Triforillonia

Chambered branching protistan fossil Palaeopascichnus left and a bulbous, discoidal Nemiana sp bottom

This #FossilFriday, how about a little look forward in the #Ediacaran to the post Kotlin Crisis extinction event strata in in Newfoundland. doi.org/10.1130/G542...

The post-extinction biotas are dominated by discs such as #Aspidella terranovica and the giant protistan #Palaeopascichnus.

TLDR; it is too early to stop doing taxonomic & natural history work and exclusively do meta-analysis; our existing datasets are highly structured & biology is weird. we shouldn't assume we already know enough to extrapolate a species' needs for conservation- we still need taxonomy & autecology

thank you :-) it’s hard to imagine the how hard lives of those captive women were.

We love being able to colour in some of the details of their day to day lives.

Thank you Julia :-)

Digging up history What do a fossil, a comet and Beothuk history have in common?

Here is a writeup of our work on #Aninoides and how it helped us to uncover a little bit of Beothuk astronomy. Obviously :-)

With huge thanks to @julialaite.bsky.social

gazette.mun.ca/research/dig...

So it seems that the Kotlin Crisis and subsequent Kotlinian Dead Zone recognized by Brasier are coincident with a major turnover of the Ediacaran biotas. The first major #Extinction that the #Eumetazoa ever experienced!

doi.org/10.1130/G542... for those with access, or drop us an email.