The Search for Cloudina
A Geological Study of 540 million year old
Reefs in Southern Namibia
Adrian Tasistro-Hart ‘17 and Ray Bartolucci ‘17
Department of Geosciences
Field Assistants to Graduate Student Akshay Mehra
Ediacaran Period (635-541 mya)
- After “Snowball Earth”, global
Marinoan ice age 635 mya
- Before Cambrian “Explosion”
=> Hosted immediate predecessors to
animals and the first biomineralizers,
***Cloudina***
- Locations today: Australia, Namibia
Major Questions
- How are Cloudina related to the first animals
(separate kingdom, or direct ancestors)?
- What role did Cloudina play in the ancient
offshore/reef environments?
- What can we learn from these fossils about
ancient climates?
Goals
1) Collect samples suitable for 3-dimensional
reconstruction of Cloudina
2) Develop understanding of environmental
conditions in the paleo-reefs
3) Constrain large- and small-scale
morphologies of the reefs, especially in terms
of Cloudina distribution within the reefs
Field Work
- Stratigraphic sections
- Drone flights
-
High resolution aerial imagery
Eventually DEM’s of mapped and sampled terrain
- Mapping of reef outcrop with GPS grid
- Sampling (almost 1600lbs collected)
Reef
Skills
- Formulating, testing, and updating hypotheses in
the field
- Turning theoretical knowledge into practical
application (identifying rocks and interpreting how
they formed)
- Effective data collection
Camping, climbing, and baboon fighting abilities
Future Analysis
- Isotope analysis
- Zircon dating
- Stratigraphic sections to map geologic
history
- Mapped grid of one reef to study reef
morphology and composition through time
Future Analysis
- Computer learning on Digital Elevation
Models (DEMs) to compute spatial statistics
- Thin-sections of samples
- Grinding of samples to create 3D models of
Cloudina to study
- morphology
- growth habits