The Emu Bay Shale Konservat-Lagerstätte: a view of Cambrian life from East Gondwana

2015/11/10 by John R. Paterson, Diego C. García‐Bellido, J. B. Jago +3 · 5 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils #Geological formations and processes #Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology

paper · doi:10.1144/jgs2015-083

openalex publication_date 2015/11/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/21

Abstract

Recent fossil discoveries from the lower Cambrian Emu Bay Shale (EBS) on Kangaroo Island, South Australia, have provided critical insights into the tempo of the Cambrian explosion of animals, such as the origin and seemingly rapid evolution of arthropod compound eyes, as well as extending the geographical ranges of several groups to the East Gondwanan margin, supporting close faunal affinities with South China. The EBS also holds great potential for broadening knowledge on taphonomic pathways involved in the exceptional preservation of fossils in Cambrian Konservat-Lagerstätten. EBS fossils display a range of taphonomic modes for a variety of soft tissues, especially phosphatization and pyritization, in some cases recording a level of anatomical detail that is absent from most Cambrian Konservat-Lagerstätten.

Citations

• Arthropod fossil data increase congruence of morphological and molecular phylogenies
• A new phyllopod bed-like assemblage from the Burgess Shale of the Canadian Rockies
• Sedimentation of the Phyllopod Bed within the Cambrian Burgess Shale Formation of British Columbia
• A review of the Cambrian biostratigraphy of South Australia
• Fitting and comparing models of phyletic evolution: random walks and beyond

Cited by

• Metamorphism obscures primary taphonomic pathways in the early Cambrian Sirius Passet Lagerstätte, North Greenland
• Vertically migrating Isoxys and the early Cambrian biological pump
• The problematic Cambrian arthropod Tuzoia and the origin of mandibulates revisited
• A juvenile-rich palaeocommunity of the lower Cambrian Chengjiang biota sheds light on palaeo-boom or palaeo-bust environments
• Cambrian [wikipedia]