Half-a-billion-year-old marine ecosystem fossils discovered in China

In the Huayuan area (Hunan Province, China), during excavations, a team from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered over 50,000 fossils of 153 animal species that lived 512 million years ago. According to the news agency Big Asia, about 60% of these findings belong to entirely new species unknown to science.

Significantly, this remarkable collection, named the Huayuan Biota, is exceptionally well-preserved. Scientists studied the tiniest details of early jellyfish, annelids, and other animals, obtaining unprecedented information about the ancient marine ecosystem.

Importantly, the discovery is associated with the Sins Event, one of the earliest known mass extinctions on Earth. This occurred around 513 million years ago due to a sharp drop in oxygen levels in the oceans, wiping out nearly half of Cambrian marine animals.