''Oldhamia'' is an
ichnogenus
An ichnotaxon (plural ichnotaxa) is "a taxon based on the fossilized work of an organism", i.e. the non-human equivalent of an artifact. ''Ichnotaxon'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''íchnos'') meaning "track" and English , itself derived from ...
describing burrows produced by worm-like organisms mining underneath microbial mats. It was common from the Early Cambrian deep-water deposits.
The
Ediacaran
The Ediacaran ( ) is a geological period of the Neoproterozoic geologic era, Era that spans 96 million years from the end of the Cryogenian Period at 635 Million years ago, Mya to the beginning of the Cambrian Period at 538.8 Mya. It is the last ...
species ''Oldhamia recta'' are body fossils of a rod-like organism, rather than ichnofossils.
The Ordovician ''Oldhamia pinnata'' and Carboniferous-Permian ''Oldhamia fimbriata'' were mentioned without any ichnotaxonomical formalization, and therefore are ''
nomina nuda
Nomen may refer to:
*Nomen gentilicium, the middle part of Ancient Roman names
** ''Nomen est omen'', a Latin quote about nominative determinism
*Nomen (ancient Egypt), the personal name of Ancient Egyptian pharaohs
*Jaume Nomen (born 1960), Catal ...
''.
It was named after the geologist
Thomas Oldham by
Edward Forbes
Edward Forbes FRS, FGS (12 February 1815 – 18 November 1854) was a Manx naturalist. In 1846, he proposed that the distributions of montane plants and animals had been compressed downslope, and some oceanic islands connected to the mainland ...
, who first described it in 1848.
See also
*
List of Ediacaran genera
The existence of life, especially that of animals, before the Cambrian had long been the subject of debate in paleontology. The apparent suddenness of the Cambrian explosion had no firm explanation, and Charles Darwin himself recognized the chal ...
References
Burrow fossils
Fortunian
{{cambrian-stub