Mawsonites

Mawsonites is a fossil genus dating to the Ediacaran Period from 635 – 539 million years ago during the Precambrian era. The fossils consist of a rounded diamond shape, made up from lobes radiating out from a central circle roughly 12 cm in diameter. There are about 19 radiations from the central circle.

Mawsonites Temporal range: Ediacaran
Fossil of Mawsonites spriggi at Natural History Museum, London
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	incertae sedis
Genus:	†Mawsonites Glaessner & Wade, 1966
Type species
Mawsonites spriggi Glaessner & Wade 1966

The type species is Mawsonites spriggi, named after Douglas Mawson, and Reg Sprigg. It was named by Martin Glaessner and Mary Wade in 1966.^[1]

Its biological affinities were called into question amidst suggestions that it might represent a mud volcano or other sedimentary structure, but further research showed that these structures could not satisfactorily account for its complexity.^[2]

The fossil has been theorized to represent algae holdfasts, jellyfish,^[3] a filter feeder, a burrow, a microbial colony or invertebrate tracks.^[4] Several of these possibilities would indicate that Mawsonites represents a trace fossil, not an organism.

See also

• List of Ediacaran genera