Exploring the Ediacaran-Cambrian Transition with Lyle Nelson and the GSA
As part of the Geologic Society of America's 2026 Thompson Field Forum, EAPS Professor Lyle Nelson helped lead an international group of scientists around Namibia to explore the geologic history of complex animal ecosystems over 500 million years ago.
Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science (EAPS) Professor Lyle Nelson spent a week co-leading a field trip in southern Namibia through the Geological Society of America’s (GSA) Thompson Field Forum. There, a team of international scientists spent a week studying the geology of the region to ask questions about the how, when, where, and way of the development of the first complex animal ecosystems during Earth’s history.
“The goal was to bring together a diverse group of scientists from different disciplines working in different parts of the world on the same time interval with similar motivating questions,” says Nelson, a Kerr-McGee Development Assistant Professor, who has been doing research in the region for about a decade.
Before the trip, the GSA hosted a classroom-based conference at the University of Namibia Southern Campus, hosting talks and posters discussing the Ediacaran-Cambrian Transition, a period in Earth’s geologic history about 570-530 million years ago marked by a shift from soft-bodied to skeletonized marine organisms, as well as the radiation of mobile animals.
Following the conference, field participants traveled to key locations through Namibia. The ancient marine basins located in the area, collectively known as the Nama Group, have a well-preserved geologic record of the late Ediacaran and earliest Cambrian periods, including fossils of both hard- and soft-bodied organisms and rocks that allow scientists to establish a historical timeline and learn other useful information about that time interval, such as the climate conditions and ocean chemistry.
“It was so productive to examine these important outcrops as a group and discuss interpretations,” Nelson says. “This format encouraged new collaborations among different previously disconnected research groups and allowed for thought-provoking and constructive debates and discussions.”
To learn more about the trip and their discoveries, watch the GSA video about the trip above, or over at the GSA YouTube channel.
