The Geological Society of South Australia (SA Div.), Field Geology Club of South Australia, and Royal Society of South Australia present:
The 11th Ralph Tate Memorial Lecture
The Ediacaran & Cambrian fossils of South Australia: the Dawn of Animal Life
Thursday 3rd of September 2026 at 6.30 pm
Mawson Lecture Theatre
Department of Earth Sciences
Adelaide University
Associate Professor Diego C. Garcio-Bellido
Adelaide University and the South Australian Museum
Abstract: South Australia holds what is considered by many the best record of early animals in the world, represented by the Ediacara Biota of the Flinders Ranges —now part of a UNESCO World Heritage nomination— and the Cambrian fauna from Emu Bay Shale in Kangaroo Island. These sites are, respectively, just before and just after the Cambrian “explosion”, the biggest radiation of animal groups the planet has witnessed, including most of those we see around us today: arthropods, molluscs, echinoderms, even our group, the chordates. These half-a-billion year old fossils show exceptional preservation of the soft parts of those first complex life forms, which are normally lost soon after burial, and South Australian outcrops contain dozens of species and complete ecosystems. Research on both regions during the last two decades by Adelaide University and the SA Museum has uncovered extensive new material and led to several outstanding discoveries.
Bio: Diego was born, raised, and graduated in Spain, where he got his BSc in Zoology (1997) and PhD in Palaeontology (2002) from the Complutense University in Madrid. Diego settled in Australia in 2012 but has previously carried out long research stays in Los Angeles, Toronto, Cambridge, and London. He studies the early evolution of animals during the Ediacaran and Cambrian, more than 500 million years ago, particularly in the Flinders Ranges and Kangaroo Island, but also the Canadian Rockies, the Andes, and the Atlas. His expertise focuses on exceptional preservation of trilobites and other arthropods, molluscs, echinoderms, worms, sponges… and has published on fossils from Australia, Canada, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, China, Argentina, and Peru. Diego has written over 100 research papers (including 3 in the journal Nature), book chapters and popular articles, presented over 80 international conference communications, and has led research projects totalling over $4 Million in funding, from organisations like Australian Research Council, NASA, Spanish Research Council, and National Geographic Society.
Members and visitors are warmly invited to attend.
For further information visit: www.fieldgeologyclubsa.org.au