Soft-bodied fossils from a Silurian volcaniclastic deposit

Article Abstract:

Soft-bodied fossils discovered at the Silurian locality of Herefordshire have a marine setting and fill an important gap in the history of life on Earth during the post-Burgess Shale period. The Herefordshire fauna includes at least three new polychaetes that correspond to the 140 million year gap in the polychaete record, starting from the Cambrian Burgess Shale to the Devonian Hunsruck Slate. These polychaetes include short widely spaced parapodia, short broad laterally projecting chaetose parapodia, and elongate parapodia.

Research, Geology, Stratigraphic, Stratigraphy, Devonian period, Burgess Shale

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Old fossils could be fractal frauds

Article Abstract:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers John Grotzinger and Daniel Rothman have suggested that stromatolites, fossils which are thought to reflect the history of mat-forming microorganisms, are not really of biological origin. Using fractal geometry, Grotzinger and Rothman showed that the morphogenesis of their stromatolite samples could have been entirely abiotic and that many of the features previously assumed to be biogenic are also likely to be abiotic.

Usage, Origin, Fractals, Stromatolites

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An epipodite-bearing crown-group crustacean from the Lower Cambrian

Article Abstract:

An Orsten-type Konservat-Lagerstatte from the Lower Cambrian of China, which contains at least three new arthropod species, is described. Small leaf-shaped structures on the outer limb base of the new species have provided evidence on the origin of epipodites.

China, Physiological aspects, Environmental aspects, Arthropoda, Arthropods

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