Avalon explosion

Dickinsonia, an enigmatic quilted organism with glide symmetry which may have been an early animal

Cloudina may have been one of the first mineralized animals to appear, although its life appearance and evolutionary affinities remain unknown.

Kimberella is an enigmatic fossil that has been interpreted as a cubozoan cnidarian, or as an early mollusc, but its identity is still unclear.

The Ediacaran trace fossils are a sign of animal movement as well as sediment disturbance, they show possible signs of the earliest true animals.

The Avalon explosion, named from the Precambrian faunal trace fossils discovered on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, eastern Canada, is a proposed evolutionary radiation of prehistoric animals about 575 million years ago in the Ediacaran period, with the Avalon explosion being one of three eras grouped in this time period. This evolutionary event is believed to have occurred some 36.2 million years earlier than the Cambrian explosion, which had been long thought to be when complex life started on Earth.

Scientists are still unsure of the full extent behind the development of the Avalon explosion, which resulted in a rapid increase in metazoan biodiversity, including the first appearance of some extant infrakingdoms/superphyla such as cnidarians and bilaterians. Many of the Avalon explosion animals are sessile soft-bodied organisms living in deep marine environments, and the first stages of the Avalon explosion were observed through comparatively minimal species.