1990/01/01 by Nicholas J. Butterfield · 8 citations
Environmental Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Isotope Analysis in Ecology #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research #Marine Biology and Ecology Research
paper · doi:10.1017/s0094837300009994
openalex publication_date 1990/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Organic preservation of non-mineralizing animals constitutes an important part of the paleontological record, yet the processes involved have not been investigated in detail. Organic-walled fossils are generally explicable as a coincidence of original, relatively recalcitrant, extra-cellular materials and more or less anti-biotic depositional circumstances. One of the most pervasive natural inhibitors of biodegradation results from substrate and enzyme adsorption onto, and within, clay minerals; such interactions are likely responsible for many of the organic-walled fossils preserved in clastic sediments. Close examination of the fossil Lagerstätte of the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian, British Columbia) reveals that most of its so-called soft-bodied fossils are composed of primary (although kerogenized) organic carbon. Their preservation can be attributed to pervasive clay-organic interactions as the organisms were transported in a moving sediment cloud and buried with all cavities and spaces permeated with fine grained clays. The organic-walled Burgess Shale fossils were studied both in petrographic thin section and isolated from the rock matrix, following careful acid maceration. Isotopic analysis of bulk organic and carbonate carbon yielded values consistent with a normal marine paleoenvironment. Anatomical and histological consideration of the enigmatic Burgess worm Amiskwia suggest that it may in fact be a chaetognath, while the putative chordate Pikaia appears not to be related to modern cephalochordates.