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These strange, mysterious organisms lived in Finnmark 560 million years ago

“It’s difficult to classify them in relation to more familiar life forms,” says the geologist behind a new study.

These are fossils from Charnia, an organism that researchers find difficult to classify.

(Photo: Veenma et al. 2026 / CC BY 4.0)

Lasse Biørnstad Lasse Biørnstad Journalist

Published 24 September 2026 - 00:04

Norway’s northernmost country, Finnmark, boasts some truly unique conditions: here, extremely old rocks are exposed at the surface.

“Rocks from this time period are exposed in only a few places around the world,” Yorick Veenma told sciencenorway.no.

He has also helped discover the first fossils of their kind in Scandinavia: the highly mysterious Charnia.

“This is a form of life that bears no resemblance to anything we know today,” he said to sciencenorway.no.

Ancient seabed

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“When we go that far back in time, these organisms are so strange and mysterious that it is difficult to classify them in relation to more familiar life forms,” says the geologist, who works at the University of Cambridge.

We will return to what Charnia might have been—but it is certainly something very alien.

But what is special about this Finnmark location?

In a few places around the world, geological conditions have allowed rock from the Ediacaran period to be exposed at the surface. Ediacaran is the name of the geological period that began approximately 635 million years ago and ended 538 million years ago.

Following this period came the so-called Cambrian Explosion—a time marked by an extreme surge in the number of species and biological diversity, according to Wikipedia.

However, it was during the preceding era—the Ediacaran period—that the very first complex life appeared on Earth.

And fossils from this time can be found in Finnmark.

Finnmark is home to rock formations dating back well over 500 million years that are exposed at the surface. This is one of the sites where fossil finds have been made.

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"You don't need to dig at all. It’s a natural rock face, and that’s where the fossils appeared," says Veenma.

He explains that they were in the area conducting a major geological survey and knew the rocks might contain fossils from the Ediacaran period.

You can read more about fossils from this part of Norway on sciencenorway.no.

In Finnmark, the phenomenon involves ancient seabed from the Ediacaran period being thrust upwards during mountain-building processes. Living organisms were once buried and fossilized on this incredibly old seabed.

"We knew that something like Charnia hadn't been found there before," Veenma said. "But when the fossils actually appeared, it was a huge surprise."

But what exactly have the researchers found?

A fern-like animal? Or a plant?

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What the researchers discovered is something very different and alien. The life form is described in greater detail in this 2021 study.

The organism known as Charnia may resemble a fern, but it is not a plant. The specimens described by Veenma and his colleagues in a new research paper range from a few centimetres to over ten centimetres in length.

The largest known specimens are around a metre long. They were soft and featured branch-like structures. They were anchored to the seabed by a sort of holdfast.

One of the fossils from Great Britain—one of the other locations where Charnia fossils have been found.

"It looks a bit like a feather or a fern," Veenma said.

Researchers do not know how they obtained nutrients or lived.

"We aren't even sure if we should call them animals," he said.

According to PBS, they likely lived too deep to photosynthesize, but they may have engaged in a form of seawater filtration. You can learn more about this in the video further down in the article.

Veenma points out that knowledge regarding these organisms is constantly evolving and that much remains uncertain.

An exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. illustrating what life might have looked like back then. Charnia is depicted as the fern-like organisms.

Finnmark is thus one of the few places in the world where fossils from this time period can be found. Fossils have also been uncovered in parts of Great Britain, Australia, Siberia, and Canada.

However, he believes that the discovery of a new site where Charnia and other organisms from this era can be found is excellent for research.

"This demonstrates the potential for finding even more fossils," he said. "Individual fossils don't tell the whole story. Ideally, you want various types of fossils – different sizes, from different locations and environments."

Together, these fossils can reveal how the organisms and ecosystems functioned. But that requires researchers to find more fossils.

A 3D fossil

One of the Charnia fossils discovered in Finnmark is preserved in 3D form. Fossils are usually preserved as flat impressions, but in this case, something special occurred.

A type of underwater landslide buried a Charnia specimen beneath the seabed. The organism itself was then filled with sand and sediment. It then became fossilized, thereby preserving a three-dimensional shape.