New Pattern: Kimberichnus

Kimberichnus is a fan shaped set of scratch marks found on rocks in the Ediacaran, most likely made by early mollusk Kimberella. These little scratches were made as Kimberella scraped algae off the hardpan surface of the Ediacaran sea floor. Yes, that's right - I'm making clothing inspired by the nom nom marks of an old dead maybe-slug.

Kimberella photo, taken by Aleksey Nagovitsyn, Arkhangelsk Regional Museum

Tiny, but artistic - this beautifully preserved Kimberella was the original pattern maker here. Photo taken by Aleksey Nagovitsyn, Arkhangelsk Regional Museum

I like to think of them as little scratchy slug kisses. The fossils themselves show that Kimberella was reaching out and scraping algae in a way that created fan-shaped sets of paired ridge marks. 

Kimberichnus trace fossil

These scratch marks are very small! Photo by Aleksey Nagovitsyn.

Weirdly, they appeared to graze backwards - they would stick an elongated body part out, scrape, and move in the opposite direction - which is why the fans are preserved without a trail on top of them.

And in this pattern I've placed each consecutive set of scratch marks in an even more fan-like seamless repeating fan pattern with Kimberella down at the base. 

Kimberichnus and kimberella

Keep an eye out this week for new products featuring this pattern!

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