The first life on Earth: an exhibit at the South Australian Museum

At the South Australian Museum is the permanent exhibit The First Life: Ediacara Biota Gallery. It showcases examples of the oldest known complex, multicellular animal life on Earth.

The First Life Gallery is a relatively new gallery established to illustrate the evolution of life based on new field research. The museum’s palaeontologists are excavating areas of fossil sea floors, and discovering new fossil sites in the Flinders Ranges, in northern South Australia.

The First Life Gallery includes new examples of fossil specimens, animations, videos, and 3D fossil models to show how the animals may have moved and lived. The interesting specimens include the ancient seabeds displayed as a wall. Palaeontologists are still using this wall for further research.

The Ediacaran soft-bodied creatures – the first animal life on the planet – lived on microbial mats on the shallow sea floor. When covered by sand they were preserved as “death-mask imprints” – which are really the moulds and casts of their squashed bodies that have been preserved as mineral imprints in sandstone layers. These fossils were collected from many sites in the Flinders Ranges. They were the basis for defining the first new geological period in over a century, known as the Ediacaran Period. This new rung in the ecological ladder of life in geological time is marked with a “golden spike” in the Flinders Ranges National Park. It is the first “golden spike” marker to be defined in the rocks of the entire Southern Hemisphere.

The first life on Earth, the Ediacaran Period, began 635 million years ago, and ended 542 million years ago with the Cambrian Period of animal life, represented by animals with skeletons and shells.

In 2010, naturalist Sir David Attenborough visited the National Heritage Listed Ediacara at Nilpena in the Flinders Ranges with the South Australiam Museum’s palaeontologist Dr. Jim Gehling and the Ediacara volunteers as part of the First Life BBC television series.

http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au

Comments

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass

Sister cities discussed: Canberra and Islamabad

Two months ago, in March 2015, Australia and Pakistan agreed to explore ways to deepen ties. The relationship between Australia and Pakistan has been strong for decades, and the two countries continue to keep dialogues open. The annual bilateral discussions were held in Australia in March to continue engagements on a wide range of matters of mutual interest. The Pakistan delegation discussed points of interest will include sports, agriculture, economic growth, trade, border protection, business, and education. The possible twinning of the cities of Canberra, the capital of Australia, and Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, were also on the agenda (i.e. called twin towns or sister cities). Sister City relationships are twinning arrangements that build friendships as well as government, business, culture, and community linkages. Canberra currently has international Sister City relationships with Beijing in China and Nara in Japan. One example of existing

FEAST OR FAMINE

Search This Blog