HARROW: A fool and his gold may soon to be parted, but when it comes to fool’s gold the two may be intertwined for hundreds of millions of years, according to a recent archaeological find from southwest China.
According to the findings of a research team led by University of Arizona neuroscientist Nicholas Strausfeld, traces of brain matter from the fossilized remains of Fuxianhuia protensa – small, shrimp-like arthropods that thrived during the Cambrian Period – have been uncovered and positively identified. Many of these fossilized brains have been found with an overlay of pyrite, a mineral that is commonly referred to as “fool’s gold” because of its passing resemblance to the precious metal.
The Cambrian Period is known as a turning point in the evolutionary development of life on Earth. Prior to the Cambrian, most of the planet’s forms of life were decidedly simple. However, an evolutionary event referred to today as the Cambrian explosion saw the complexity of planetary fauna blossom overnight in a geological sense, leaving massive marks on the fossil record.
