Ediacaran Earth 
EDIACARAN

THE PROTEROZOIC EON (Ediacaran Period)
635 to 542 Million Years Ago
The Age of the "Ediacaran Garden"
 The Rise of Earth's First Multicellular Life
(Also called the VENDIAN PERIOD)
You will be like a well-watered garden . . . - Isaiah 58:11

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Paleo-Geography

Life
  • First multicellular life - Ediacaran biota or 'Vendobionts'
  • Strange lifeforms shaped like immobile bags, disks,
    fronds, or 'air-mattresses'
  • No predators - the inhabitants of the "Ediacaran Garden"
    peacefully absobed nutrients from the water
  • No digestive tracts, legs, jointed limbs, shells; skeletons
  • No definite relationship to later plants or animals
  • Almost all 'Vendobionts' extinct at end of Ediacaran

  The Ediacaran lifeform   Dickinsonia (left) was   often the size of   a doormat. Was it a   primitive jellyfish, a   segmented worm, or   neither?

 (Image: John H Dawson)
The strange Vendobiotans of Ediacaran Earth
(Image: Smithsonian NMNH, Photo: P.A. Bourque)

 

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To the Hadean Eon To the Archean Eon To the PaleoProterozoic Era To the Cryogenian Period To the Ediacaran Period To the Phanerozoic Eon To Earth History Timeline To the Ediacaran Period To the MesoProterozoic Era