How are Lagerstatten formed?
How are Lagerstatten formed?
Rapid burial of transported live organisms (e.g., obrution) is another way to generate Lagerstätten, a classic example being the Cambrian Burgess Shale (Caron and Jackson, 2006). Assemblages of insects and other fossils in amber are also considered to be Lagerstätten.
Why is the Chengjiang Fossil Lagerstätten Maotianshan shale important?
The Chengjiang fossils comprise the oldest diverse metazoan assemblage above the Proterozoic-Phanerozoic transition and, thus, the fossil record’s best data source for understanding the apparently rapid diversification of life known as the Cambrian Explosion.
What fossil assemblage is indicative of the early Cambrian?
Chengjiang Biota
The Chengjiang Biota, from Yunnan, China, is the most diverse assemblage of Early Cambrian marine fossils known.
What is a Lagerstätten and provide one factor that is important for a Lagerstätten to form?
Konzentrat-Lagerstätten (concentration Lagerstätten) are deposits with a particular “concentration” of disarticulated organic hard parts, such as a bone bed. Conservation Lagerstätten are crucial in providing answers to important moments in the history and evolution of life.
How did the Burgess Shale get preserved?
They were buried in an underwater avalanche of fine mud that preserved exceptionally fine details of the structure of their soft parts. Only hard parts are preserved in most other Cambrian deposits, obviously limiting information within the geologic record.
Where did the Cambrian explosion occur?
The most significant Cambrian lagerstätten are the early Cambrian Maotianshan shale beds of Chengjiang (Yunnan, China) and Sirius Passet (Greenland); the middle Cambrian Burgess Shale (British Columbia, Canada); and the late Cambrian Orsten (Sweden) fossil beds.
During what period did the Burgess Shale appear?
Middle Cambrian Epoch
Burgess Shale, fossil formation containing remarkably detailed traces of soft-bodied biota of the Middle Cambrian Epoch (520 to 512 million years ago).
What does the Cambrian Explosion tell us about evolution?
The Cambrian explosion, considered a crucial event in the evolution of animals, was in full burst by 518 million years ago. Animals start burrowing into the sediment, aerating beneath the seafloor and stirring these nutrients up.
What is a lagerstätten formation?
These formations may have resulted from carcass burial in an anoxic environment with minimal bacteria, thus delaying the decomposition of both gross and fine biological features until long after a durable impression was created in the surrounding matrix. Lagerstätten span geological time from the Neoproterozoic era to the present.
Where did the Cambrian lagerstatten form?
When paleogeographic reconstructions are undertaken, they show that Cambrian lagerstatten formed in a wide variety of latitudes and across most of the continents of that time. Most of the sites were in deep water at the time of deposition, though the Emu Bay Shale represents a shallower water deposit.
Where are the world’s major Lagerstätten?
The listing below of the world’s major Lagerstätten begins with the oldest, the some billion year old Bitter Springs of Australia, and ends with the 20,000 year old La Brea Tar Pits near Los Angeles, California (USA).
How was the Solar System formed and evolved?
The formation and evolution of the Solar System began 4.5 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud. Most of the collapsing mass collected in the center, forming the Sun, while the rest flattened into a protoplanetary disk out of which the planets, moons, asteroids, and other small Solar System
