Precambrian

Long Myndian Formation

Shropshire, West Midlands, England, United Kingdom

81mm x 68mm slab with many

Problematica,

Intrites is a genus erected for discoidal impressions found in late Precambrian rock.  These impressions have been interpreted as the result of activity by microbes and also as body fossils.  They could be bacterial masses, algae, or evidence of activity of something else.

This specimen comes from near the end of the Vendian Period which covers a span of geologic time from about 540 to 650 million years ago, (in other words just before the beginning of the Paleozoic Era).  It is the time that macroscopic life appeared – best known from areas like the Ediacara Hills, Australia and the White Sea.  The supercontinent, Rodinia had formed from the collisions of protocontinents approximately 1.2 billion years ago, but by the end of the Vendian, it had started to break up into landmasses that would drift into each other again at the end of the Paleozoic Era.