Ediacaran type preservation

If too thick a layer of sediment is deposited before they can grow or reproduce through it, parts of the colony will die, leaving behind fossils with a characteristically wrinkled "elephant skin" texture.

Although microbial mats were once widespread, the evolution of grazing organisms in the Cambrian vastly reduced their numbers,[3] and these communities are now limited to inhospitable refugia where predators cannot survive long enough to eat them.

[4] However, it is more common to find Ediacaran fossils under sandy beds deposited by storms or high-energy, bottom-scraping ocean currents known as turbidites.

[12] This hypothesis struggles to account for a number of observations, particularly in the Flinders and White Sea deposits; it is therefore difficult to argue that it formed a necessary component of Ediacara type preservation.

Most disc-shaped fossils decomposed before the overlying sediment was cemented, and the ash or sand slumped in to fill the void, leaving a cast of the underside of the organism.

Their more resistant nature is reflected in the fact that in rare occasions, quilted fossils are found within storm beds, the high-energy sedimentation not having destroyed them as it would have the less-resistant discs.