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GSA Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA - 2018

Paper No. 87-9
Presentation Time: 10:25 AM

CRYOGENIAN ASPIDELLA FROM NORTHWESTERN CANADA


BURZYNSKI, Greg, Department of Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering, Queen's University, 36 Union Street, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada, NARBONNE, Guy M., Queens University, Department of Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering, 36 Union Street, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada, DECECCHI, Thomas Alexander, Department of Biology, University of Pittsburgh Johnstown, 450 Schoolhouse Road, Johnstown, PA 15904; Department of Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering, Queen's University, 36 Union Street, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada and DALRYMPLE, Robert W., Department of Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada

The sudden appearance of large, relatively complex macroscopic organisms in the earliest of the Ediacara biota (the Avalon assemblage) has long been an enigma. Restudy of fossils from immediate pre-Marinoan, deep-water deposits of the Mackenzie Mountains, NW Canada, documents the earliest stages of the growth of subphotic benthic communities. This includes the “Twitya discs” originally reported in 1990; simple biogenic forms of uncertain taxonomic affinity. At least two specimens of the Twitya discs share several features unique to the Ediacaran form-taxon Aspidella Billings, 1872. This assemblage is the best-documented assemblage of multiple specimens of Ediacaran-type discs recorded below glaciogenic rocks of the Marinoan glaciation, and may hint at the origins of the deep-water benthic communities of the Ediacara biota.

Session No. 87

T126. Earth and Life Co-Evolution in the Early to Middle Neoproterozoic (1000 to ca. 635 Ma)
Monday, 5 November 2018: 8:00 AM-12:00 PM
Room 143-144 (Indiana Convention Center)
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 50, No. 6
doi: 10.1130/abs/2018AM-318442
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