EGU Blogs

Geology Photo of the Week # 16 – Dec 16-22

Matt Herod December 17, 2012 Humour, Paleontology, Photo of the Week Comments Closed

It’s photo of the week time! I hope you’re excited…I am! There has been a lot of consternation in the twitterverse and geoscience community lately about the true identity of the Ediacaran biota, particularly the little guy pictured below. The abstract can be found here. The basic proposal is that the Ediacaran fossils are not marine, but rather are actually lichen.

Dickensonia specimen at the Smithsonian. (Photo: Matt Herod)

Bonus photo of the week. This is the closest I’ll ever get to being in Science….for a long while at least.

Cheers!

Matt

Ediacaran

By Matt Herod

Matt Herod is a Ph.D Candidate in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa in Ontario, Canada. His research focuses on the geochemistry of iodine and the radioactive isotope iodine-129. His work involves characterizing the cycle and sources of 129I in the Canadian Arctic and applying this to long term radioactive waste disposal and the effect of Fukushima fallout. His project includes field work and lab work at the André E. Lalonde 3MV AMS Laboratory. Matt blogs about any topic in geology that interests him, and attempts to make these topics understandable to everyone. Tweets as @GeoHerod.

About

The term geosphere is an all-encompassing word that incorporates just about every aspect of the earth sciences. This means that topics ranging from geophysics to geochemistry to geobiology are part of the geosphere. The blog Geosphere honours its namesake by covering any and every topic in the geosciences. The principal goal of Geosphere and its author, Matt Herod, is to make science clear for anyone that should stumble in and enhance awareness of the geosphere for all. With this in mind I encourage any who have questions to post, comment or email me.