THE EARLIEST FOSSILS
This page contains fossils older than 250 million years, i.e fossils from the Precambrian and Palaeozoic eras. Click here for a detailed geological timescale
The Precambrian Era is the largest division of time in Earth history and extends from the formation of the Earth, 4.6 billion years ago, to the beginning of the Palaeozoic Era about 550 million years ago. Life is thought to have originated on Earth about 3.8 billion years ago but for much of the Precambrian it consisted only of simple, single-celled organisms that left no trace.
The Palaeozoic Era was a time of dramatic evolutionary change with the arrival of complex organisms which diversified in the oceans and, about 420 million years ago, finally colonised the land. It was in the Palaeozoic that the ancestors of most of the modern groups of animals appeared. Common marine fossils from this time include trilobites, graptolites, brachiopods, crinoids, corals and fish. Late in the Palaeozoic the great Carboniferous coal forests appeared on land which have given us spectacular fossil ferns and other plants.
PRICE: £18.00
PART OF A FOSSIL CORAL REEF (CUT AND POLISHED COBBLE) - 325 million years old - Yorkshire
PRICE: £20.00
PART OF A FOSSIL CORAL REEF (CUT AND POLISHED COBBLE) - 325 million years old - Yorkshire
PRICE: £18.00
PART OF A FOSSIL CORAL REEF (CUT AND POLISHED) - 325 million years old - Northumberland
PRICE: £38.00
PART OF A FOSSIL CORAL REEF (LARGE SPECIMEN CUT AND POLISHED) - 325 million years old - Yorkshire
PRICE: £46.00
PART OF A FOSSIL CORAL REEF (POLISHED COBBLE) - 325 million years old - East Yorkshire
PRICE: £18.00
PART OF A FOSSIL CORAL REEF (CUT AND POLISHED) - 325 million years old - Northumberland
PRICE: £18.00
TRILOBITE PRESERVED IN A NODULE (BOTH HALVES) - 450 million years old - Atlas Mountains, Morocco
PRICE: £18.00
PART OF A FOSSIL CORAL REEF (CUT AND POLISHED COBBLE) - 325 million years old - Yorkshire
PRICE: £20.00
PART OF A FOSSIL CORAL REEF (CUT AND POLISHED COBBLE) - 325 million years old - Yorkshire
PRICE: £38.00
