Tiny fossils found in 1.7 billion-year-old mud yield clues to the evolution of complex life

By Maxwell Lechte, Research Associate in Geobiology, University of Sydney
Leigh Anne Riedman, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Earth Science, University of California, Santa Barbara

Stored in an open-air warehouse in tropical Darwin, Australia, are dozens of trays containing cylindrical cores of rock. They are from drill holes bored hundreds of metres below the surface by mineral exploration companies decades ago.

Some of these cores at the Northern Territory Geological Survey are mudstone – a type of sedimentary rock formed from hardened seafloor mud. The companies that drilled these cores were largely unaware that within these mudstones were fossils…

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