{"id":8877,"date":"2011-03-27T21:09:16","date_gmt":"2011-03-27T20:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/?p=8877"},"modified":"2012-12-10T03:36:41","modified_gmt":"2012-12-10T03:36:41","slug":"return-to-the-land-of-charnia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/2011\/03\/27\/return-to-the-land-of-charnia\/","title":{"rendered":"Return to the Land of Charnia"},"content":{"rendered":"

However impressive my best Bear Grylls outdoorsman pose might be, it’s nothing compared to the rocks I’m standing on.<\/p>\n

\"Tim<\/a>
Charnwood Forest<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Charnia masoni (Wikicommons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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For this is Leicestershire’s Charnwood Forest<\/a>, whose +600 million year old outcrops are some of the oldest on the planet. It’s also the area where the very first precambrian macrofossils were discovered by Roger Mason in 1957 (Ref.1).<\/p>\n

Before that time, nobody dreamt fossils of this age existed.<\/p>\n

And to think I was born only eight miles away in Leicester; gee-whizz.\u00a0 (The pic above was taken after a family get-together for my birthday a couple of weeks ago. Suspect this was a subliminal attempt to feel younger by standing on something very old.\u00a0 Can’t say it was entirely successful.)<\/p>\n

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David Attenborough most recently brought Charnwood and the appropriately named fossil Charnia<\/em> to popular fame in his 2010 series First Life.\u00a0 And, as it turns out, he and I\u00a0 are both Leicester lads who first explored Charnwood as schoolboys.\u00a0 On which cue I’m handing any further science communication on this ancient world over to Sir David; here he introduces the fern-like Charnia masoni (most relevant part at 2:10 thru 5:50):<\/p>\n