Ediacaran

British  

/ ˌiːdiːˈækərən /

adjective

1. of, denoting, or formed in the last 50 million years of the Neoproterozoic era, during which a new texturally and chemically distinctive carbonate layer appeared, indicating climatic change

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noun

1. the Ediacaran period or rock system

Ediacaran Scientific  

/ ē′dē-ä′kə-rən /

1. Relating to a group of fossilized organisms that are the earliest known remains of multicellular life. They are soft-bodied marine life forms that date from between 560 and 545 million years ago, during the late Precambrian Eon.

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Etymology

Origin of Ediacaran

C20: named after the Ediacara Hills in the Flinders mountain range in South Australia

Example Sentences

The rocks dated to the Ediacaran Period, which lasted from about 635 million to 541 million years ago, just before the Cambrian Period when complex multicellular life rapidly diversified.

From Science Daily • Feb. 27, 2026

So far, the samples indicate that these sponges lived during the Ediacaran Period.

From Science Daily • Feb. 27, 2026

Fueled by silica-rich and iron-rich seawater and the unusual chemistry of Ediacaran oceans, these authigenic clays grew around the buried organisms.

From Science Daily • Jan. 27, 2026

Excavating a site in Australia that contains fossils of other Ediacaran organisms, they found 1-centimeter creatures they named Uncus dzaugisi.

From Science Magazine • Nov. 20, 2024

This week in Current Biology, researchers report tiny nematodelike fossils from the Ediacaran period, dating to about 15 million years before the Cambrian forms.

From Science Magazine • Nov. 20, 2024