. Figure 1. Cambrian lobopodian diversity. (A) Aysheaia pedunculata, middle Cambrian Burgess Shale (NMNH-83942). (B) Claws of Aysheaia pedunculata (NMNH-365608). (C) Hallucigenia sparsa, middle Cambrian Burgess Shale (NMNH198658; courtesy of M. Smith, University of Cambridge. Nature 523, 75–78). (D) Microdictyon sinicum, early Cambrian Chengjiang (ELRC-30060; courtesy of G. Edgecombe, Natural H...

In the most complete and first radiometrically dated Precambrian-Cambrian transition strata along the Khorbusuonka River in northern Siberia, a succession of fossilized traces of activity of the earliest infaunal animals has been identified. As supplemented by a similar record in Podolia, the Ukraine and elsewhere. This collection demonstrates that thus far all of the structurally identifiable ...

ECOS III The slender, spine-shaped, apatitic protoconodonts appear in the fossil record near the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary and persist through the Cambrian . Recent work (Szaniawski 1 982, J. Paleont. 56) suggests that protoconodont elements were homologous to the grasping spines of modern chaetognaths . Paraconodonts are similar to protoconodonts in their mode of growth by basal accretion ...

Bioturbation long has been ‘blamed’ for eliminating late Proterozoic-style sedimentary structures and fabrics. While the presence of diverse and complex burrows in lowermost Cambrian strata is indisputable, analysis of Precambrian– Cambrian successions in southeast Newfoundland demonstrate that this burrowing style did not produce typical Phanerozoic-style ichnofabrics. Three hundred meters of ...

BACKGROUND Extant cubozoans are voracious predators characterized by their square shape, four evenly spaced outstretched tentacles and well-developed eyes. A few cubozoan fossils are known from the Middle Cambrian Marjum Formation of Utah and the well-known Carboniferous Mazon Creek Formation of Illinois. Undisputed cubozoan fossils were previously unknown from the early Cambrian; by that time ...

Establishing the timescale of early land plant evolution is essential for testing hypotheses on the coevolution of land plants and Earth's System. The sparseness of early land plant megafossils and stratigraphic controls on their distribution make the fossil record an unreliable guide, leaving only the molecular clock. However, the application of molecular clock methodology is challenged by the...

The geological age of the onychophoran crown-group, and when the group came onto land, have been sources of debate. Although stem-group Onychophora have been identified from as early as the Cambrian, the sparse record of terrestrial taxa from before the Cretaceous is subject to contradictory interpretations. A Late Carboniferous species from the Mazon Creek biota of the USA, Helenodora inopinat...

The Cambrian radiation of complex animals includes a dramatic increase in the depth and intensity of bioturbation in seafloor sediment known as the 'agronomic revolution'. This bioturbation transition was coupled with a shift in dominant trace fossil style from horizontal surficial traces in the late Precambrian to vertically penetrative trace fossils in the Cambrian. Here we show the existence...