Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:27:09.287Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Spygoria zappania new genus and species, a Cloudina-like biohermal metazoan from the Lower Cambrian of central Nevada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2015

Marc Salak  and
Halard L. Lescinsky
Marc Salak
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of California, Davis 95616
Halard L. Lescinsky
Affiliation:
Department of Life and Earth Science, Otterbein College, Westerville, Ohio 43081
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A new enigmatic Lower Cambrian fossil, Spygoria zappania, is described From the Nevadella zone (Botoman) of Lander County, central Nevada. In gross morphology, Spygoria fossils consist of stacks of small (5–10 mm in diameter) irregular calcified cups that are preserved in vertical, concave-up life orientation. Stacks are linked laterally into large monospecific bioherms which flourished in a shallow turbulent marine environment.

The Spygoria organism is interpreted as a metazoan which presumably inhabited the uppermost cup in each stack and periodically secreted new cups as it grew upward. Absence of holdfast structures suggest that the organism was held in place by sticky mud until opportunistically cementing to adjacent individuals. The affinity of Spygoria remains problematical, though we suggest that its stacked structure somewhat resembles the cone-in-cone structure of Cloudina, which formed similar dense thickets in shallow turbulent carbonate environments during the terminal Proterozoic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 73 , Issue 4 , July 1999 , pp. 571 - 576
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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

Brasier, M. D. 1979. The Cambrian radiation event, p. 103–159. In House, M. R. (ed.), The Origin of Major Invertebrate Groups. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Debrenne, F. 1977. Archeocyathes du Jbel Irhoud (Jebilets-Maroc.). Bulletin de la Societe Geologique et Mineralogique de Bretagne, 7:93–136.Google Scholar
Debrenne, F., Gangloff, R. A., and Lafuste, J. G. 1987. Tabulaconus handfield: microstructure and its implication in the taxonomy of primitive corals. Journal of Paleontology, 61:1–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fritz, M. A. 1975. Broad correlations of some Lower and Middle Cambrian strata in the North American Cordillera. Geological Survey of Canada Paper, 75-A:145–159.Google Scholar
Germs, G. J. B. 1972. New shelly fossils from Nama Group, South West Africa. American Journal of Science, 272:752–761.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glaessner, M. F. 1984. The Dawn of Animal Life. Cambridge University Press, 244 p.Google Scholar
Grant, S. W. F. 1990. Shell structure and distribution of Cloudina, a potential index fossil for the terminal Proterozoic. American Journal of Science, 290-A:261–294.Google Scholar
Handfield, R. C. 1971. Archaeocyatha from the Mackenzie and Cassiar Mountains, N. W. Territories, Yukon Territory and British Columbia. Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin, 201, 119 p.Google Scholar
Hardie, L. A. 1996. Secular variation in seawater chemistry: an explanation for the coupled secular variation in the mineralogies of marine limestones and potash evaporites over the past 600 m.y. Geology, 24:279–283.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, N. P., and Debrenne, F. 1980. Lower Cambrian bioherms: pioneer reefs of the Phanerozoic. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 25:655–668.Google Scholar
Kleinhample, F. J., and Ziony, J. I. 1985. Geology of northern Nye County, Nevada. Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology Bulletin 99A, 172 p.Google Scholar
Lescinsky, H. L., and Benninger, L. 1994. Pseudo-borings and predatory traces: artifacts of pressure dissolution in fossiliferous shales. Palaios 9:599–604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mcmenamin, M. A. S., and Schulte Mcmenamin, D. L. 1990. The Emergence of Animals: The Cambrian Breakthrough. Columbia University Press, 217 p.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Means, W. D. 1962. Structure and stratigraphy in the central Toiyabe Range, Nevada. University of California Publications in Geology, 42:71–104.Google Scholar
Mount, J. F., Hunt, D. L., Greene, L. W., and Dienger, J. 1991. Depositional systems, biostratigraphy and sequence stratigraphy of Lower Cambrian grand cycles, southwestern Great Basin, p. 209–229. In Cooper, J. D. and Stevens, C. H. (eds.), Paleogeography of the Western United States-II, Pacific Section SEPM, 67.Google Scholar
Rowland, S. M. 1981. Archaeocyathid reefs of the southern Great Basin, western United States, p. 193–197. In Taylor, M. E. (ed.), Short Papers for the Second International Symposium on the Cambrian System. U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 81-743.Google Scholar
Rowland, S. M. 1984. Were there framework reefs in the Cambrian? Geology, 12:181–183.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowland, S. M., and Gangloff, R. A. 1988. Structure and paleoecology of Lower Cambrian reefs. Palaios, 3:111–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salak, M. E. 1994. Spygoria zappania, N. Gen., N., Sp., a new gregarious metazoan from the Lower Cambrian of Central Nevada, and Lower Cambrian microfauna of the Great Basin, Central Nevada. Unpublished , University of California, Davis, 70 p.Google Scholar
Seilacher, A. 1999. Biomat-related life styles in the PreCambrian. Palaios, 14:86–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanley, S. M., and Hardie, L.A. 1998. Secular oscillations in the carbonate mineralogy of reef-building and sediment-producing organisms driven by tectonically forced shifts in seawater chemistry. Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology, 144:3–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, J. H. 1970. Upper Precambrian and Lower Cambrian strata in the southern Great Basin. United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 620, 206 p.Google Scholar
Stewart, J. H. 1984. Stratigraphic sections of Lower Cambrian and Upper Proterozoic rocks in Nye, Lander, and Lincoln Counties, Nevada, and Sonora, Mexico. United States Geological Survey Open-File Report 84-691.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, J. H., and Mckee, E. H. 1977. Geology and mineral deposits of Lander County, Nevada. Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology 88, Part 1, 59 p.Google Scholar
Stewart, J. H., and Palmer, A. R. 1967. Callaghan Window—a newly discovered part of the Roberts Thrust, Toiyabe Range, Lander County, Nevada. United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 575D:56–63.Google Scholar
Valentine, J. W., Awramik, S. M., Signor, P. W., and Sadler, P. M. 1991. The biological explosion at the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary. Evolutionary Biology, 25:279–356.Google Scholar
Washburn, R. H. 1970. Paleozoic stratigraphy of the Toiyabe Range, southern Lander County, Nevada. Journal of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, 54:275–284.Google Scholar
Wilson, R. I. 1992. Storm-dominated Lower Cambrian depositional environments in the Ravenswood area, Lander County, Nevada. Unpublished , University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 109 p.Google Scholar
Wray, J. L. 1977. Calcareous Algae: Developments in Palaentology and Stratigraphy. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 185 p.Google Scholar
Yochelson, E. L. 1984. Speculative functional morphology and morphology that could not function: The example of Hyolithes and Biconulites. Malacologia, 25:255–264.Google Scholar