Fossils on Mars: A "Cambrian Explosion" and "Burgess Shale" in the Lake Beds of Gale Crater?

An array of formations resembling the fossilized remains of Ediacaran and Cambrian fauna and other organisms have been observed embedded atop sediments in the dried lake beds of Gale Crater, Mars. Specimens similar in morphology have been found together, or upon adjacent and nearby rocks and mudstone.These include forms morphologically similar to polychaete and segmented annelids, tube worms, "Kimberella,” crustaceans, lobopods, chelicerates, Haplophrentis carinatus, and the “ice-cream-cone-shaped” “Namacalathus” and “Lophophorates.” All specimens may have dwelled in a large body of water and may have been fossilized/mineralized following the rapid receding of these waters. Statistical quantitive micro-and macro morphological comparisons with analog organisms from Earth support the fossil-hypothesis. It is highly unlikely that these specimens were fashioned via abiogenic forces including wind, mineralization, crystallization, dried mud, or water-erosion scenarios. Collectively, these putative fossils could represent the equivalent of a “Burgess Shale” and the remnants of Martian organisms that long ago flourished in the lakes and inland seas of Gale Crater, Mars.