Mawsonites

Mawsonites Temporal range: Ediacaran
Fossil of Mawsonites spriggi at Natural History Museum, London
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	incertae sedis
Genus:	Mawsonites Glaessner & Wade 1966
Species:	M. spriggi Glaessner & Wade 1966

Mawsonites is a kind of fossil from the Ediacaran period (630 – 542 million years ago) from the Precambrian era. The fossils consist of a rounded diamond shape, made up from lobes radiating out from a central circle roughly 12 cm in diameter. There are about 19 radiations from the central circle.

The type species is Mawsonites spriggi, named after Douglas Mawson, and Reg Sprigg. It was named by Martin Glaessner and Mary Wade in 1966.^[1]

Its biological affinities were called into question amidst suggestions that it might represent a mud volcano or other sedimentary structure, but further research showed that these structures could not satisfactorarily account for its complexity.^[2]

Theories about what it is are algae holdfasts, jellyfish, a filter feeder, a burrow, and a microbial colony.

See also

List of Ediacaran genera

References

1. ^ "The Late Precambrian Fossils from Ediacara, South Australia". Palaeontology 9 (4): 599–628. 1966. 
2. ^ van Loon, A.J. (2008). "The nature of Mawsonites (Ediacara fauna)". Gondwana Research 14 (1–2): 175–182. doi:10.1016/j.gr.2007.08.009. http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1342937X07001785 

• Digging Up Deep Time, Paul Willis and Abbie Thomas
• Ediacaran Taxa