Discovery of ancient reef could “push back evolution” by 80 million years

Too cool:

The discovery of an ancient reef north of Adelaide by Australian scientists may push back the evolution of the earliest animals by 80 million years.

The unpublished research, by geoscientists Associate Professor Malcolm Wallace, Estee Woon and Jonathan Giddings from the University of Melbourne, will be presented at the Selwyn Symposium on Thursday.

The researchers say they have uncovered complex organisms that in some ways resemble multicellular life in a large reef located in the Northern Flinders Ranges, 700 kilometres north of Adelaide in South Australia.

If the fossils – which are around 650 million years old – are of multicellular organisms, they would be the earliest examples of primitive animal life discovered so far, the researchers say.

(snip)

The find is especially significant because it may be the missing piece of the puzzle in the evolution of early animal life.

Before the Ediacaran geological period, 635 million years ago, the only life forms were simple, single-celled organisms.

Then suddenly, 570 million years ago, very complex animals appear in the fossil record.

Scientists have long debated just what caused this evolutionary explosion in life.

In response, creationists have moved God’s creation of the earth forward 1,000 years.  They were all, “O RLY?  Well I can touch that doorknob over there before you can!”