First Animal Life — Older Than Cambrian

For many years, the Cambrian layer contained the oldest animal life ("oldest" in Darwinspeak years). Other bewildering fossils had been popping up here and there, but were a curiosity. More were being found over the years. After the century got itself a notion to turn, in 2004 that is, the Ediacaran geologic system was designated and the geologic record gained a new track.

Vinyl record generated at Says-It

The Ediacaran system has a variety of critters, but they seem to be all soft-bodied, and they didn't make much of an impression. Speculations and disagreements ensued (but they did not stop this writer from making baseless assertions mixed with "maybe" terminology to keep the evolution faith). Biblical creationists have some ideas involving the Genesis Flood model that should shed some light on the situation.

We’ve all heard about one of the great mysteries in paleontology: dinosaurs. They disappear from the fossil record without a trace. The disappearance of dinosaurs proved difficult for many scientists to explain until geological thinking became more comfortable with the idea of global catastrophes.

Dinosaurs get all the attention, but a different kind of mystery cloaks the other end of the fossil record: the Ediacaran.

For over a century, most people thought the lowest examples of animal life were in the Cambrian rocks because they contained the first life forms with “hard parts.” Think trilobites. Like most other people in his generation, Charles Darwin identified these rocks as the first examples of life in the fossil record. In the next hundred years or so, however, paleontologists found some strange fossils belonging to the lower Cambrian.

To read the rest, click on "Mystery of the First Animals".