Francevillian Group Fossil
Encyclopedia
The Francevillian Group Fossil is an early, macroscopic organism. They were centimeter-sized highly organized, spatially discrete colonial organisms. Their fossils are found in the west-African country of Gabon
in the Palaeoproterozoic Francevillian B Formation, a 2.1-Gyr
-old black shale province.
The organism was 12 cm in size. Their bodies were flattened disks with a characteristic morphology. Their margins were scalloped and had radial slits. They have an internal radial fabric. The geochemistry of the fossil site indicates that they lived under 40 meters of water, and breathed oxygen.
The lead author, Abderrazak El Albani
, said, “The discovery is fantastic because it shows the existence of multicellular fauna 1.5 billion years earlier than what we know. … This is important to understand the evolution of life on Earth.”
Charles Darwin
predicted that fossils would be found in the Precambrian
rocks. The discovery of these fossils adds to the Precambrian fossil record, and satisfies his predictions about evolutionary history.
Gabon
Gabon , officially the Gabonese Republic is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west...
in the Palaeoproterozoic Francevillian B Formation, a 2.1-Gyr
Gyr
Gyr or gyr can mean:* Phoenix Goodyear Airport , an airport in Arizona, United States* Gyrfalcon, a species of bird of prey* Byr or Gyr, abbreviations for gigayear, i.e. a billion years...
-old black shale province.
The organism was 12 cm in size. Their bodies were flattened disks with a characteristic morphology. Their margins were scalloped and had radial slits. They have an internal radial fabric. The geochemistry of the fossil site indicates that they lived under 40 meters of water, and breathed oxygen.
The lead author, Abderrazak El Albani
Abderrazak El Albani
Abderrazak El Albani is a French sedimentologist, maître de conférences at University of Poitiers at the Hydrasa laboratory He is significant for having discovered the oldest known fossils of multicellular organisms in the 2.1 billion years-old black shales of the Palaeoproterozoic Francevillian...
, said, “The discovery is fantastic because it shows the existence of multicellular fauna 1.5 billion years earlier than what we know. … This is important to understand the evolution of life on Earth.”
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
predicted that fossils would be found in the Precambrian
Precambrian
The Precambrian is the name which describes the large span of time in Earth's history before the current Phanerozoic Eon, and is a Supereon divided into several eons of the geologic time scale...
rocks. The discovery of these fossils adds to the Precambrian fossil record, and satisfies his predictions about evolutionary history.