Ancient life and moving fluids.

Area of Science:

• Paleobiology
• Fluid Dynamics
• Neoproterozoic Life

Background:

• Life has evolved complex adaptations for fluid environments over Earth's history.
• Fluid dynamics is a crucial tool for studying ancient fossils and extinct organisms.
• The Ediacara biota, early Neoproterozoic soft-bodied organisms, are a recent focus for fluid dynamics studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review fluid physics for palaeobiologists, clarifying concepts like Reynolds number.
• To showcase advances in Ediacaran palaeobiology using computational fluid dynamics (CFD).
• To provide best practices and a worked example for CFD analysis of fossils.

Main Methods:

• Review of fluid physics principles and governing equations.
• Application of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to Ediacaran fossils.
• Introduction of large eddy simulation (LES) for extinct organisms.

Main Results:

• CFD provides new insights into Ediacaran feeding, locomotion, and community interactions.
• Clarification of fluid dynamics concepts, such as Reynolds number, for palaeobiological applications.
• Demonstration of CFD as a powerful tool for analyzing fossilized organisms.

Conclusions:

• Fluid dynamics, especially CFD, is essential for understanding early life and ecosystems.
• This approach enhances our ability to study ancient organisms and develop new palaeobiological tools.
• Further research using fluid dynamics will illuminate the earliest animal ecosystems.