The first named Ediacaran body fossil, Aspidella Terranovica
2000/09/01 by James G. Gehling, James G. Gehlîng, Guy M. Narbonne +1 · 264 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Benthic zone #Geological and Geophysical Studies #Geological formations and processes #Geology #Macrofossil #Paleontology #Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils #Precambrian #Trace fossil
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.0031-0239.2000.00134.x
published in Palaeontology 43(3), 427-456 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2000/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Abstract
Aspidella terranovica Billings, 1872 was first described from the late Neoproterozoic Fermeuse Formation (St. John's Group) on the Avalon Peninsula of eastern Newfoundland, approximately 1km stratigraphically above the famous Ediacaran biota at Mistaken Point, and several kilometres below the base of the Cambrian. Aspidella has been reinterpreted perhaps more than any other Precambrian taxon, and has variously been regarded as a fossil mollusc or ‘medusoid’, a gas escape structure, a concretion, or a mechanical suction mark. Our studies indicate that Aspidella includes a wide variety of preservational morphs varying from negative hyporeliefs with a raised rim and ridges radiating from a slit ( Aspidella ‐type preservation), to flat discs with a central boss and sharp outer ring ( Spriggia preservation), to positive hyporeliefs with concentric ornamentation ( Ediacaria preservation). Specimens occur in a continuum of sizes, with preservational styles dependent on the size of the specimen and the grain size of the host lithology; the elongation of specimens is tectonic. Aspidella is confirmed as a body fossil from observations of complex radial and concentric ornamentation, mutually deformed borders in clusters of specimens, and occurrence on the same bedding planes as certain distinctive Ediacaran taxa. Aspidella is indistinguishable from, and has priority over, several of the most common genera of late Neoproterozoic discoidal body fossils worldwide. Similar fossils from Australia are interpreted as holdfasts of frond‐like organisms. The density of specimens in the Aspidella beds suggests levels of benthic biomass in the Neoproterozoic that could rival those of modern marine communities. The serial growth forms, Palaeopascichnus Intrites, Neonereites renarius Yelovichnus , associated with Aspidella , are interpreted as body fossils of unknown affinities rather than trace fossils. A new, trilobed, Ediacaran body fossil, Triforillonia costellae gen. et sp. nov., is described from the Aspidella beds of the Fermeuse Formation.
Citations
Cited by
- Testing the protozoan hypothesis for Ediacaran fossils: a developmental analysis ofPalaeopascichnus
- The Rise of Animals in a Changing Environment: Global Ecological Innovation in the Late Ediacaran
- The Palaeobiology of Two Crown Group Cnidarians: Haootia quadriformis and Mamsetia manunis gen. et sp. nov. from the Ediacaran of Newfoundland, Canada
- Ediacaran distributions in space and time: testing assemblage concepts of earliest macroscopic body fossils
- Earliest evidence of behavioural handedness in the Ediacaran motile bilaterian Spriggina floundersi
- Discophyllum, a common large eldonioid (problematic discoidal fossil) from sandstone strata bearing the Tafilalt Biota (Late Ordovician) of Morocco
- The role of symbiosis in the first colonization of the seafloor by macrobiota: Insights from the oldest Ediacaran biota (Newfoundland, Canada)
- Late Ediacaran Obamus coronatus trumped by mid Tonian impression from Ormiston Gorge, central Australia
- Were jellyfish stranded on a shoreline sand ca 850 million years ago in the Amadeus Basin of central Australia?
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- Silicified Horodyskia and Palaeopascichnus from upper Ediacaran cherts in South China: tentative phylogenetic interpretation and implications for evolutionary stasis
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