Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T22:45:14.345Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Global distribution of the earliest shelly metazoans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Jiang Zhiwen
Jiang Zhiwen
Affiliation:
Institute of Geological Sciences of Yunnan Province, Kunming, People's Republic of China
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The appearance of the first abundant skeletal organisms in the earliest Cambrian was a quantum leap in the evolutionary history of life. It provided the foundations of the animal kingdom from Cambrian times onwards. This paper demonstrates that this evolutionary process resulted from a combination of environmental and biological factors. The author maintains that the appearance of the oldest shelly fossils is a reasonable criterion for defining the Precambrian–Cambrian boundary. This arises not only from the viewpoint of taking the Cambrian Period as the first period in the Palaeozoic Era, but is also a logical extension of regarding the history of life as being divisible into a series of developmental stages.

Type
Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 121 , Issue 3 , May 1984 , pp. 185 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bengtson, S. 1970. The Lower Cambrian fossil Tommotial Lethaia 3, 363–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bengtson, S. 1977. Aspects of problematic fossils in the Early Palaeozoic. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis 415, 1–71.Google Scholar
Bengtson, S. 1980. Redescription of the Lower Cambrian Lapworthella cornu. Geologiska Föreningens i Stockholm Förhandlingar 102 (1), 53–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cloud, D. E. Jr 1976. Beginnings of biospheric evolution and their biogeochemical consequence. Paleobiology 2, 351–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cobbold, E. S. 1935. Lower Cambrian faunas from Hérault, France. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Series 10 16, 25–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conway Morris, S. & Fritz, W. H. 1980. Shelly microfossils near the Precambrian–Cambrian boundary, Mackenzie Mountains, Northwestern Canada. Nature 286, (5771), 381–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowie, J. W. 1978. Symposium on the Precambrian–Cambrian boundary. Geological Magazine 115. (2), 81–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fritz, W. H. 1978. Fifteen stratigraphic sections from the Lower Cambrian of the Mackenzie Mountains North-Western Canada. Geological Survey of Canada Paper 77–33, 1–19.Google Scholar
Glaessner, M. F. 1958. New fossils from the base of the Cambrian in South Australia. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 81, 185–8.Google Scholar
Harland, W. B. 1974. The Precambria–Cambrian boundary. In Lower Palaeozoic Rocks of the World (ed. Holland, C. H.), pp. 15–42. Wiley.Google Scholar
Holm, G. 1893. Sveriges Kabrisk-Siluriska. Hyolithidae och Conulariidae. Sveriges Geologiska Undersökning. Afhandlingar och Uppsatser, Series C 112, 173 pp.Google Scholar
Jiang, Zhiwen, 1981. Shelly fossil assemblages and the trace fossil sequence in the Meishucun Stage, China. In Short Papers of the Second International Symposium on the Cambrian System (ed. Taylor, M. E.), pp. 98–9. U.S. Geological Survey Open File Report 81–743.Google Scholar
Matthews, S. C. & Missarzhevsky, V. V. 1975. Small shelly fossils of late Precambrian–Cambrian age. Journal of the Geological Society of London 131, 289–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, C. A. 1978. Late Precambrian–Cambrian stratigraphic and faunal succession of eastern California and the Precambrian–Cambrian boundary. Geological Magazine 115 (2), 121–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rozanov, A. Yu. & Missarzhevsky, V. V. 1966. Biostratigrafiya i fauna nizhnikh gorizontov kembriya (Biostratigraphy and fauna of the lower horizons of the Cambrian). ‘Nauka’ Press (In Russian).Google Scholar
Savitsky, V. E. 1978. The Precambrian–Cambrian boundary problem in Siberia and some general problems of stratigraphy (preliminary report). Geological Magazine 115 (2), 127–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sdzuy, K. 1978. The Precambrian–Cambrian boundary beds in Morocco. Geological Magazine 115 (2), 83–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sysoyev, V. A. 1972. Biostratigrafiya i khiolity ortotetsimorfy nizhnego kembriya Sibirskoy platformy (Biostratigraphy and chiolites of a Lower Cambrian orthothecimorph of the Siberian Platform). ‘Nauka’ Press (In Russian).Google Scholar
Zhuravleva, I. T. 1970. Marine faunas and Lower Cambrian stratigraphy. American Journal of Science 269, 417–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhuravleva, I. T. (ed.) 1973. Problemy paleontologii i biostratigrafiya nizhnego kembriya Sibiri i Dal'nego Vostoka (Problems of Lower Cambrian palaeontology and biostratigraphy of Siberia and the Far East) (in Russian). Novosibirsk, Trudy Institute of Geology and Geophysics Issue 49, 258 pp.Google Scholar
Zhuravleva, I. T. (ed.) 1976. Stratigrafiya i paleontologiya nizhnego i srednego kembriya SSSR (Stratigraphy and palaeontology of the Lower and Middle Cambrian of the U.S.S.S.R.) (in Russian). Novosibirsk, Trudy Institute of Geology and Geophysics Issue 296, 248 pp.Google Scholar
Zhuravleva, I. T. (ed.) 1979. Biostratigrafiya i paleontologiya nizhnego kembriya (Biostratigraphy and palaeontology of the Lower Cambrian) (in Russian). Trudy Institute of Geology and Geophysics, SO AN SSSR, Issue 406. Novosibirsk.Google Scholar