Affiliation:
1. Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences Vanderbilt University Nashville Tennessee USA
2. Department of Geological Sciences University of Missouri Columbia Missouri USA
3. X‐ray Microanalysis Core Facility University of Missouri Columbia Missouri USA
4. Department of Geological Sciences University of Delaware Newark Delaware USA
Abstract
AbstractThe Ediacara biota are an enigmatic group of Neoproterozoic soft‐bodied fossils that mark the first major radiation of complex eukaryotic and macroscopic life. These fossils are thought to have been preserved via pyritic “death masks” mediated by seafloor microbial mats, though little about the chemical constraints of this preservational pathway is known, in particular surrounding the role of bioavailable iron in death mask formation and preservational fidelity. In this study, we perform decay experiments on both diploblastic and triploblastic animals under a range of simulated sedimentary iron concentrations, in order to characterize the role of iron in the preservation of Ediacaran organisms. After 28 days of decay, we demonstrate the first convincing “death masks” produced under experimental laboratory conditions composed of iron sulfide and probable oxide veneers. Moreover, our results demonstrate that the abundance of iron in experiments is not the sole control on death mask formation, but also tissue histology and the availability of nucleation sites. This illustrates that Ediacaran preservation via microbial death masks need not be a “perfect storm” of paleoenvironmental porewater and sediment chemistry, but instead can occur under a range of conditions.
Funder
Geological Society of America
National Science Foundation
Sigma Xia
Society for Sedimentary Geology
Subject
General Earth and Planetary Sciences,General Environmental Science,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Cited by
5 articles.
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