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Functional and Ecological Aspects of Ediacaran Assemblages

  • Chapter
Origin and Early Evolution of the Metazoa

Part of the book series: Topics in Geobiology ((TGBI,volume 10))

Abstract

Reference to fossil imprints of soft-bodied Ediacaran metazoans made by Hill and Bonney (1877, p. 757) recorded two of “those curious arrangements of concentric rings which have been supposed to be organisms” present on one of the bedding faces of the North Quarry, Woodhouse Eaves in Charnwood, Forest, Leicestershire, England (see Ford, 1958, 1963); the markings were dismissed as being “accidental ... (and) inorganic.” Early this century, P. Range and H. Schneiderhöhn collected fossil remains of equivalent age at Kuibis Farm in South West Africa (Namibia), and the organic nature of this material was confirmed by Gürich (1929, 1933). The history of discovery of such fossils during the mid part of the century (Sprigg, 1947, 1949; Ford, 1958, 1963, 1968, 1979a,b, 1981; Anderson and Misra, 1968) and the subsequent finding of similar materials widely sited about the globe are well known (e.g., Glaessner, 1984; Hofmann, 1987).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, 5000, Australia

    Richard J. F. Jenkins

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  1. Richard J. F. Jenkins
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  1. Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley, California, 94720, USA

    Jere H. Lipps

  2. Department of Geology, University of California, Davis, California, 95616, USA

    Philip W. Signor

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Jenkins, R.J.F. (1992). Functional and Ecological Aspects of Ediacaran Assemblages. In: Lipps, J.H., Signor, P.W. (eds) Origin and Early Evolution of the Metazoa. Topics in Geobiology, vol 10. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2427-8_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2427-8_5

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