Even the smallest creatures can reveal something significant if we are willing to listen.
We were all taught at school about what were considered the first true animals: trilobites with hard outer shells that appeared in the early Cambrian period and became extinct at the end of the Permian.1 Revisions to textbooks, however, tend to occur slowly, particularly when new evidence does not align with established curricular structures. This is why information available since the 1940s was only incorporated in 2004, when geologists formally recognised a new period in Earth’s history, the Ediacaran.2
Unfamiliarity with the name is understandable. Even Word repeatedly attempts to correct it. Nevertheless, the term is accurate and its significance is considerable. The Ediacaran is the first geological period in over 120 years to receive formal recognition. Its importance lies in the fact that it challenges earlier interpretations and renders them increasingly difficult to uphold, even after subsequent revisions.
It started with…
…something that fit into nothing and was better left unexamined. In 1946, in the low Ediacaran mountain range in Australia, something far more valuable and unexpected than the silver once mined there was discovered: new life.3 And not just any life. It had already been found in other parts of the world, with the earliest known case dating back to 1868,4 but it remained buried in scientific literature, excluded from textbooks and largely forgotten. Neglected and poorly classified for years, it was only recognised as the oldest multicellular life thirteen years after its discovery in the antipodes.
These organisms are known as the Ediacaran fauna, and their discovery was anything but simple. Their soft bodies made fossilisation highly improbable, which complicated their identification. Their place in the fossil record also presented a problem. According to accepted scientific views, they appeared suddenly and disappeared just as abruptly, shortly before the major diversification of life known as the Cambrian explosion. This pattern did not fit existing models of evolutionary development. These organisms did not simply emerge from nowhere and vanish to be replaced by entirely different forms of multicellular life.
Getting warmer…
Some things require a search for a deeper explanation. This was the conclusion Roger Lewin reached in 1984 in his article Alien Beings Here on Earth, published in ‘Science’ journal.5 By searching for the origins of these extraordinary creatures further than others had, he stumbled upon the right trail. Impossible to classify within any known kingdoms,6 appearing from nowhere and going extinct without reason, they had to originate from beyond Earth, though this had nothing to do with flying saucers, as the aforementioned article suggested.
Sometimes a closer look at what is right in front of us is enough, without twisting facts to fit theories or reshaping theories to match the facts. Science and history offer at least one answer to the many questions that arise when we consider the fossil remains linked to the Ediacaran. What happened to these organisms? What caused them to vanish so suddenly and completely from a planet where they had once lived?
Dr Steven Austin and Dr Kurt Wise undertook a re-examination and reinterpretation of sedimentary deposits within North American glacial strata, which include representatives of the Ediacaran fauna often referred to as ‘alien neighbours’. They concluded that the only viable explanation for such rapid extinction, accompanied by the sudden appearance of well-preserved, soft-bodied and unarmoured fossils, was the large-scale collapse of continental structures and the displacement of substantial volumes of sediment. For such a process to occur, intense and widespread rainfall would have been required, falling almost simultaneously across the globe and persisting for several weeks or even months. In short, a flood.7
These conditions correspond to the biblical description of the event, which speaks of exceptionally heavy rainfall lasting an extended period. Rain is said to have fallen for forty days, while the waters continued to rise for another five months due to the eruption of subterranean sources (Gen. 7:24). The prolonged pressure lasting several months is also consistent with both geological and palaeontological findings and with the biblical account. According to Genesis 8:3–5, more than seven months after the flood began, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat, and ten months later, the peaks of the mountains became visible.
Unfortunately, this brings us back to the position held eighty years ago. It does not align with the evolutionary model, which depends on processes unfolding over hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. By contrast, the Ediacaran fauna became extinct rapidly, almost overnight. This is why the flood, which lasted around one year (Gen. 7:11 and 8:13–14), provides a more coherent explanation, and also why it is absent from school textbooks. It will likely take another decade for this to change.
Ediacaran – new knowledge, new possibilities
What do these discoveries offer, and why are they worth discussing? They remind us that we do not yet know everything, that knowledge must be reviewed continually, and that this must be done without prejudice. These organisms, regardless of what we call them, lived and became extinct. That fact remains unchanged. What matters is what we do in response. We can choose to recognise their significance, study them with care, and draw reasonable conclusions, or we can ignore them for the sake of convenience. We believe that ignorance is a barrier that prevents us from fully engaging with the structure and beauty of the natural world. For this reason, we will continue to seek knowledge and share it, as every scientist should, with integrity and an open mind.
By the way, we recommend reading the articles:
- The Power of Spoken Words
- The Texas Mystery Spider
- The Transformation of Fins into Limbs
- Giants in the Bible and Other Writings
- Geniuses and Savants: Extraordinary Minds and Evolution
Footnotes
- Radwański, A. and Roniewicz, P., 1963. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 8(2), pp.259–280. Available at: https://www.app.pan.pl/article/item/app08-259.html.
- Knoll, A.H., Walter, M.R., Narbonne, G.M. and Christie-Black, N., 2006. The Ediacaran Period: a new addition to the geologic time scale. Lethaia, 39, pp.13–30. doi:10.1080/00241160500409223.
- Sprigg, R.C., 1947. Early Cambrian (?) jellyfishes from the Flinders Ranges, South Australia. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 71(2), pp.212–224.
- Gehling, J.G., Narbonne, G.M. and Anderson, M.M., 2000. The First Named Ediacaran Body Fossil, Aspidella terranovica. Palaeontology, 43, p.429. doi:10.1111/j.0031-0239.2000.00134.x.
- Lewin, R., 1984. Alien Beings Here on Earth. Science, 223(4631), p.39. Available at: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/223/4631/39.
- Seilacher, A., 1992. Vendobionta and Psammocorallia: lost constructions of Precambrian evolution. Journal of the Geological Society, London, 149(4), pp.607–613. doi:10.1144/gsjgs.149.4.0607.
- The Pre-Flood/Flood Boundary: As Defined in Grand Canyon, Arizona, and Eastern Mojave Desert, California. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism. Pittsburgh: Creation Science Fellowship, pp.37–47.
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