Talk:Ediacara biota

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Featured article star Ediacara biota is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do.
An entry from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on April 16, 2007.
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[edit] Timeline

Can we do something about the timeline? It's kind of ugly-looking, like the fonts are badly pixelated... Adam Cuerden talk 12:08, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

It's difficult to do anything whilst retaining an easily editable wiki syntax - which I feel is vital given the certainty that details'll change significantly as time goes on. Unless I were to write a new "timeline" template.... *lighting up of eyes in slightly manic fashion* Verisimilus T 07:25, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Heh heh. Oh, dear. Adam Cuerden talk 08:02, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nama-type assemblage

Did some more editing. I've changed "sandbars in the mouths of a delta's distributaries" to "sandbars in a river delta". This is certainly simpler, but it's not quite as specific. change it back if you think this removes too much information.

The two environments are subtly different - one is marine, one is freshwater. Verisimilus T 16:32, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Good point. What about "sandbars at the mouth of a river delta"? Adam Cuerden talk 17:26, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, there's a citation needed tag in there. Can you get that? Adam Cuerden talk 03:43, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I found a source! Adam Cuerden talk 02:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, I've tried to clarify the underside/upperside preservation. in "What is preserved?" I think this is right: "The rate of cementation of the overlying substrate, relative to the rate of decomposition of the organism, determines whether the top or bottom surface of an organism is preserved. Most disc-shaped fossils decomposed before the overlying sediment was cemented, and the ash or sand slumped in to fill the void, leaving a cast of the underside of the organism." Adam Cuerden talk 03:48, 17 June 2007 (UTC)°

I might have to look into some of Narbonne's stuff to clarify properly. On it. Verisimilus T 16:32, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I've checked the original: It looks like that's right. "In the simplest case, a bulb seated with the basal protuberance in clay, suffers burial under a layer of sand at least as thick as the exposed height of the bulb. Collapse or decay of a hypothetical upper surface would allow sand to cast the basal impression in the underlying clay" Adam Cuerden talk 02:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Lastly, should

"Mark McMenamin goes one step further, and claims that Ediacarans could not be animals because they did not possess an embryonic stage." read "Mark McMenamin goes one step further, and claims that Ediacarans could not be animals because, as far as is known, they did not possess an embryonic stage.

I'm not sure. The claim is based on the assumption that they do not have an embryonic stage; if it's proven that they did, it's invalid. I suppose that the claim is that they don't have an embryonic stage, and the (a?) logical conclusion is that they're not animals. Verisimilus T 16:32, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Aye. But at the moment, we state their lack of embryonic stages as a fact, is this definitely true, or is it a presumption of McMenamin that we have to mark as such? Adam Cuerden talk 17:26, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I've disambiguated it - it's McMenamin's claim. Verisimilus T 10:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline

I've fixed the arrows, and moved the timeline to a template page to avoid subpages (which are turned up by the random page generator). I might fiddle with it a little to make it more or less comprehensive, depending on whether I can keep it clutter-free; I'm not sure, for example, how informative Charnia`s fossil range is. And is there a more descriptive title we could use? Once again though, great work - it looks a lot better than my initial fiddle! Verisimilus T 16:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! It wasn't all that hard, though it took a fair bit of work to get it really sorted well. I've put the first Ediacarans at 610 mya, as that's the range I found for the discs. I'd have liked to include all the organisms mentioned, but it looks like some of them are only known from one small site, and thus have little known range... I suppose we could work around this, but... Adam Cuerden talk 17:16, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be possible to select a few key organisms, in order to display the gradual emergence of more complex modes of life. Kimberella, showing the onset of predation, for example. Although there will always be a real danger of overcluttering... Verisimilus T 10:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Cannot see this template right.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11
213.33.220.118 (talk) 11:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Name

Insted of putting Aboriginal language we might have to put Kuyani language, well we wouldnt say water is from a european language would we! Reference is http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0405&L=australian-linguistics-l&D=1&P=264 Enlil Ninlil 05:15, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Diversity across the Ediacaran

Just to flag up the a recent paper which could benefit the article. Verisimilus T 11:08, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Multicellular

Re: "earliest known complex multicellular organisms." - Nobody really knows. I've seen no evidence that confirms nor denies multicellular status. There is/was a biologist who claims that they may be giant single cells, but I don't remember the name. Large plants (several cm) or parts of plants composed of a single cell do exist now. The mojority presumption is that they are multicellular, but may be merely current-life bias. --Tablizer (talk) 01:53, 5 May 2008 (UTC)