The lophophore, an essential organ of the Brachiopoda, has been used widely in evolutionary and advanced phylogenetic studies, but is hitherto unknown in the fossil record. Here, the extraordinarily well-preserved lophophores of two inarticulated brachiopods Lingulella chengjiangensis and Heliomedusa orienta, from the Lower Cambrian Chengjiang fauna (Yunnan, China) are described. These primitiv...

This paper completes the project of constructing combinatorial models (called frameworks) for the exchange graph and g-vector fan associated to any exchange matrix B whose Cartan companion is of finite or affine type, using the combinatorics and geometry of Coxeter-sortable elements and Cambrian lattices/fans. Specifically, we construct a framework in the unique non-acyclic affine case, the cyc...

Here we report the discovery of eight specimens of an Early Cambrian fossil tunicate Shankouclava near Kunming (South China). The tunicate identity of this organism is supported by the presence of a large and perforated branchial basket, a sac-like peri-pharyngeal atrium, an oral siphon with apparent oral tentacles at the basal end of the siphonal chamber, perhaps a dorsal atrial pore, and an e...

Small shelly fossils (SSFs) are highly informative of the ‘Cambrian explosion’. Their palaeobiodiversity has been documented from lower Cambrian deposits worldwide but it remains elusive in areas such as Iran, despite this region occupying a critical position on north-western Gondwana margin during early Cambrian. This new study SSFs northern Iran provides large dataset understudied area. We re...

The ocean-atmosphere system is typically envisioned to have gone through a unidirectional oxygenation with significant oxygen increases in the earliest (ca. 635 Ma), middle (ca. 580 Ma), or late (ca. 560 Ma) Ediacaran Period. However, temporally discontinuous geochemical data and the patchy metazoan fossil record have been inadequate to chart the details of Ediacaran ocean oxygenation, raising ...

While many skeletal biomineralized genera are described from Ediacaran (635-541 million years ago, Ma) strata, none have been suggested to have an affinity above the Porifera-Cnidaria metazoan grade. Here, we reinterpret the widespread terminal Ediacaran (approx. 550-541 Ma) sessile goblet-shaped Namacalathus as a triploblastic eumetazoan. Namacalathus has a stalked cup with radially symmetrica...

The Cambrian radiation is characterized by the emergence of diverse bilaterian animal phyla and establishment complex marine ecosystems. Guanshan Biota records an unusual ecological transition from trilobite- to brachiopod-dominated communities during Stage 4. This community accompanied direct evidence in situ biological interactions such as durophagous predation kleptoparasitism. Here we descr...

The early Cambrian Guanshan biota of eastern Yunnan, China, contains exceptionally preserved animals and algae. Most diverse and abundant are the arthropods, of which there are at least 11 species of trilobites represented by numerous specimens. Many trilobite specimens show soft-body preservation via iron oxide pseudomorphs of pyrite replacement. Here we describe digestive structures from two ...

The Nedamo Belt in the Kitakami Massif, NE Japan, contains early Carboniferous and Early Triassic accretionary complexes. Tectonic blocks containing plutonic rocks, ultramafic rocks high-P/T schists occur these complexes characterize Belt. comprise hornblende gabbro quartz diorite, they have been identified at more than 50 localities. U-Pb dating of zircon from diorite using inductively coupled...

Oriented samples of the Lov.'er Cambrian Sayan Go! Formation from Salaany Go!, Mongolia, were collected at roughly 5 m stratigraphic intervals for palaeomagnetic analysis. Progressive alternatingfield and thermal demagnetization isolated two magnetic components: a present-field overprint, typically removed by 10 mT fields and -200 °C heating: and a high-coercivity, high-unblocking-temperature (...