A snapshot of an ancient seafloor
The cliffs at Mistaken Point are a series of tilted rock slabs that were once the bottom of a deep ocean, more than 565 million years ago during the Ediacaran Period. Today, these surfaces are covered with the impressions of thousands of fossils. The organisms were soft-bodied, meaning they had no shells or bones to fossilize. Their exceptional preservation is due to periodic burials by fine volcanic ash that rained down through the water column. These ash layers smothered the seafloor communities, creating molds of the organisms where they lived—an "Ediacaran Pompeii."
The fossils belong to a group of organisms known as the Ediacaran biota, the earliest known large and complex life on Earth. More than 30 distinct species have been identified here. Many of the organisms are rangeomorphs, an extinct group with a fractal-like, branching body plan that resembles a fern or a spindle. These creatures lived in total darkness on the deep seabed, far below the reach of sunlight, which rules out any form of photosynthesis. The individual fossils range in size from a few centimeters to nearly two meters in length. Important species found here include the frond-shaped Charnia masoni and the spindle-shaped Fractofusus misrai.