Dr. Anette Högström, the Arctic University Museum of Norway, UiT
Dr. Anette Högström, Associate Professor of Paleontology at the Arctic University of Norway, will present: "Ancient life - secrets in the rocks"
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Neoproterozoic – Cambrian sediments globally host evidence from a most dramatic time-period in the history of life. The demise of Snowball Earth glaciations, evolution and increase in the diversity of organisms, as well as an increase in body size with the advent of the first macroscopic organisms, leading into the Cambrian explosion where we recognize familiar taxa that also dramatically changes the environment they inhabit.
In Finnmark we find a nearly continuous sedimentary section spanning the end Ediacaran to early Ordovician (~750-470 Ma), through the major glaciations, onset of macroscopic life with the Ediacaran biota and subsequent Cambrian substrate revolution. Our work has over the years focused especially on the latest Ediacaran and early to middle Cambrian, mapping the occurrences of organic walled microfossils, the Ediacaran biota, trace fossils, and into the Cambrian where the oldest trilobites and other arthropods make their appearance. This is the only Ediacaran biota in Scandinavia, exhibiting among others numerous discoidal fossils, palaeopascichnids, and representatives of more “iconic” ediacarans such as rangeomorphs, vaned organisms, and dickinsoniomorphs.
