A “Cambrian Pompeii” Recently Discovered in Morocco, Where Creatures from Over Half a Billion Years Ago Come to Life in Perfect 3D.
A multinational research team has uncovered previously unseen perfect fossils of trilobites, tiny yet significant creatures on the evolutionary tree of Earth’s life forms.
While the hard exoskeletons of trilobites are commonly found, the new fossil samples are astonishing due to their perfect preservation of soft tissues, with even tiny structures like setae remaining intact.
Cambrian “sea monsters” during a volcanic disaster 510 million years ago – (Image: SCIENCE).
According to Sci-News, unlike most fossils which are typically compressed skeletons or one side of a body sculpted into rock, the fossils in Morocco represent a completely lifelike 3D sculpture.
This rare find of trilobites in the High Atlas region of Morocco was formed by a catastrophic volcanic event 510 million years ago.
Scorching ash from the volcano suddenly engulfed the sea where these trilobites were swimming, encasing them instantly, allowing their entire bodies to be fossilized in the shape they were in while trying to escape the volcano.
The ash mold preserved each part of their bodies, legs, and even structures resembling hair along their appendages.
3D fossils excavated in Morocco – (Image: SCIENCE).
The digestive tracts of these creatures were also filled with ash, preserving their shapes perfectly.
Furthermore, paleontologists discovered small structures resembling lamps attached to the outer shells of the animals by a strip of fossilized flesh.
Using CT scanning technology and computer modeling of virtual X-ray slices, researchers described some previously unknown details about this bizarre group of organisms in the journal Science.
“These discoveries are expected to lead to significant breakthroughs in understanding the evolution of life on our planet,” said Professor Abderrazak El Albani, a geologist at the University of Poitiers (France) and co-author of the study.
The Cambrian Period (approximately 541-485 million years ago) is known as Earth’s biological explosion era, marked by a sudden increase in the diversity and complexity of simple multicellular organisms in a short timeframe.
These creatures were entirely alien compared to modern life forms, with most having no direct descendants due to devastating mass extinctions, yet they remain foundational to the life we see on our planet today.
