Charnia

Charnia is an extinct genus of frond-like lifeforms belonging to the Ediacaran biota with segmented, leaf-like ridges branching alternately to the right and left from a zig-zag medial suture. The genus Charnia was named after Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, England, where the first fossilised specimen was found, and is thus pronounced ; the first species of Charnia described, Charnia masoni, was named after Roger Mason, a schoolboy who was believed to have initially discovered it. Charnia is significant because it was the first Precambrian fossil to be recognized as such.

Charnia

Smith609 at English Wikipedia · CC BY 2.5 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
CharniidaePBDB
Diet
osmotrophPBDB
Life habit
upper-level epifaunalPBDB
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB
Environment
outer shelf,marinePBDB

Time the record covers

At most 97 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 635 Mya and 538.8 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 0 of 57 occurrences637–634 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences634–630 Mya — about 2 occurrences630–627 Mya — about 2 occurrences627–624 Mya — about 2 occurrences624–620 Mya — about 2 occurrences620–617 Mya — about 2 occurrences617–614 Mya — about 2 occurrences614–610 Mya — about 2 occurrences610–607 Mya — about 2 occurrences607–604 Mya — about 2 occurrences604–600 Mya — about 2 occurrences600–597 Mya — about 2 occurrences597–594 Mya — about 2 occurrences594–590 Mya — about 2 occurrences590–587 Mya — about 2 occurrences587–584 Mya — about 2 occurrences584–580 Mya — about 2 occurrences580–577 Mya — about 2 occurrences577–574 Mya — about 2 occurrences574–570 Mya — about 2 occurrences570–567 Mya — about 2 occurrences567–564 Mya — about 2 occurrences564–560 Mya — about 2 occurrences560–557 Mya — about 2 occurrences557–554 Mya — about 2 occurrences554–550 Mya — about 2 occurrences550–547 Mya — about 2 occurrences547–544 Mya — about 2 occurrences544–540 Mya — about 2 occurrences540–537 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences637 Mya537 Mya

57 occurrences of Charnia on record. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

57 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

16 formations

Mistaken Point — 48.53°N, 52.90°WMistaken Point — 46.62°N, 53.17°WMistaken Point — 46.62°N, 53.58°WMistaken Point — 47.60°N, 53.27°WMistaken Point — 47.63°N, 53.20°WBradgate — 52.67°N, 1.28°WBradgate — 52.77°N, 1.20°WBradgate — 52.73°N, 1.23°WTrepassey — 48.53°N, 52.90°WTrepassey — 47.63°N, 53.20°WTrepassey — 46.63°N, 53.16°WTrepassey — 48.53°N, 53.05°WFermeuse — 48.48°N, 53.10°WFermeuse — 47.65°N, 53.22°WDrook — 47.05°N, 52.90°WDrook — 46.69°N, 53.26°WDrook — 46.78°N, 60.89°WRawnsley Quartzite — 30.97°S, 138.18°ERawnsley Quartzite — 30.85°S, 138.13°EDengying — 30.79°N, 111.05°EZimnie Gory — 65.55°N, 39.77°EBriscal — 46.62°N, 53.18°WVerkhovka — 64.43°N, 39.56°EKhatyspyt — 71.13°N, 123.82°EZhoujieshan — 37.43°N, 95.80°EIves Head — 52.74°N, 1.14°WTrepassey and Fermeuse — 47.55°N, 52.67°WNadaleen — 63.39°N, 128.48°WBeacon Hill — 52.70°N, 1.23°W

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The named rock units Charnia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Found in the same rock

143 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 48 sites for Charnia, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

27 references

Each of the 57 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 15 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Charnia

Credit
Smith609 at English Wikipedia
Licence
CC BY 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCharniidae through time

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ford 1958