Fossils in the Ediacara Member in South Australia have been traditionally interpreted as representatives of ancestral marine organisms But, breaking away from this tradition and pursuing his own radical interpretation3'4, Retal-lack1 now proposes that these fossiliferous beds are palaeosols and that some Ediacaran fossils are soil lichens or colonies of soil microbes. These propositions would represent a fundamental change in our picture of evolution, but they will probably face continuing scepticism because the evidence is unconvincing.
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