One of the oldest known 3D fossils of an animal has been discovered in a sheep field in the Norwegian Arctic, the first new major site of its kind anywhere in Europe in decades.
The fossil dates from around 560 million years ago, during the Ediacaran Period, when complex forms of life first appeared on Earth. The fossil, known as Charnia, looks more like a fern than anything we would recognise as an animal today.
Charnia did not have a mouth, organs, or any visible means of movement, and was essentially a ‘goo-filled bag’ – like a sedentary jellyfish – however, it is thought to be one of the earliest animals to exist.
Many fossils dating from this period in the Earth’s history are found as flat impressions, like a flower pressed between the pages of a book. However, the new fossil – the first confirmed Charnia find in Scandinavia – is preserved in three-dimensional detail, which is incredibly rare for soft-bodied organisms, especially of this age.
The creature was swept up in an ancient underwater avalanche and quickly buried in the seabed. This filled its body with sediment, while preserving its three-dimensional form. This extraordinary preservation allowed researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, to study it in detail. Their results are reported in the journal Palaeontology.
Thanks to the high-quality preservation, the fossil was found to contain subtle ridges, known as ‘keels’, along each of its branches – a feature that had not been detected in other, flatter fossils.
“When you see the same species preserved in a different way, you start noticing properties you hadn’t seen before,” said lead author Dr Yorick Veenma, from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences.
While Ediacaran fossils have been found in different places worldwide, the discovery of a new location in Finnmark, Norway, suggests that the earliest animals may have been far more widely spread than was previously known, and that other unexplored areas could hold similar surprises.
“As scientists, we tend to go to the same well-known sites again and again to look for fossils like these,” said Veenma. “This find shows that there is still potential for discoveries in less familiar places.”
The area of Norway where the fossils were found is near an outcrop where hints of Ediacaran life had been seen before, like strange anchoring structures made by organisms as they attached themselves to the ancient seafloor. However, fossils of the organisms themselves had never been found – until a chance find in a sheep field revealed a rich new seam of fossils. Some rocks had fallen off a cliff, split open, and revealed the Charnia fossil within.
“As a fossil record, the Ediacaran has several things working against it, primarily that most organisms were soft-bodied and skeletons hadn’t evolved yet, so that they are harder to preserve,” said co-author Professor Neil Davies from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences. “A lot of fossils from the period occur as impressions where they've been squashed down under layers of rock.”
“This time period also does not have a widespread rock record,” said Veenma. “Fossils need to be embedded within sedimentary rocks to be found, so if the rocks themselves are less common, then that makes the fossils harder to find. Most Ediacaran fossils come from just a handful of locations, which makes it exciting to find them somewhere new.”
In addition to the exquisitely preserved Charnia fossil, the researchers identified several other parts of the fossil ecosystem, and they hope that more will continue to turn up. “There may be a whole undiscovered community of these very early organisms preserved up there,” said Davies. “Weird little umbrella-shaped blobs, things that don’t fit with what people know from elsewhere. There are a whole host of different things that were not known before.”
The researchers say that similar Ediacaran fossils may continue to turn up in unexpected places, and that it’s important to keep searching for new sites, even in areas where no fossils have been found before.
The research was supported in part by the Leverhulme Trust, and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Yorick Veenma is a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. Neil Davies is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge.
Reference: Yorick P. Veenma et al. ‘Charnia and other late Ediacaran macrofossils preserved in turbiditic deposits of the Indreelva Member (Finnmark, Norway).’ Palaeontology (2026). DOI: 10.1111/pala.70082
Read the original news release here.