Oldest Fossil Footprints Dating Back To 550 Million Years Are Present In Southern China-Researchers

The scientists in China have discovered the fossilized animal footprints of the ancient times. The footprints are present in parallel tracks in the mud. The study says that these footprints were about five hundred and fifty-one million years ago. These footprints are found in Yangtze Gorges in the southern region of China.

The study claims that the footprint dates to about ten million years before the explosion that took place in Cambria. It was after the Cambrian Explosion that the arthropod and other animal life started flourishing there.

The study team involves the scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology. These scientists were assisted by another group of scientists from the Virginia Tech in the United States. The team is involved in researching about the tracks and burrows found in the Denying Formation. The Denying Formation signifies as a fossil-rich area present near the banks of Yangtze River.

In a press release about the survey, Dr. Shuhai Xiao of Virginia Tech conveys, “If an animal makes footprints, the footprints are depressions on the sediment surface, and the depressions are filled with sediments from the overlying layer.”This style of preservation is distinct from other types of trace fossils, for example, tunnels or burrows, or body fossils. The footprints are organized in two parallel rows, as expected if animals made them with paired appendages. Also, they are organized in repeated groups, as expected if the animal had multiple paired appendages.”

Before this, no evidence of the limbed animals before the Cambrian Explosion was available. Thus one can say that the sudden surge in bio-diversity around five hundred and ten to five hundred and forty million years ago.

The scientists claim that the current findings bore a resemblance with the fossil prints that date back to the period between four hundred and nineteen to three hundred and fifty-eight million years ago. These fossil prints were found in Dunure and Montrose regions of Scotland.