Abstract
The 'Cambrian explosion' refers to the major adaptive radiation of the metazoans during the earliest Phanerozoic, an event that is best known by the abrupt appearance of hard parts near to the Precambrian–Cambrian boundary (˜550 Myr BP)1. Deciphering this important evolutionary episode depends largely on the study of these skeletal remains2,3, together with trace fossils that include burrows and trackways4,5. Many of these latter fossils evidently represent the activities of soft-bodied organisms, such as worms and lightly sclerotized arthropods, whose exact identity is seldom known, not least because they can be fossilized only in exceptional circumstances6. However, documenting the soft-bodied representatives of early metazoan communities cannot be neglected if they accounted for a substantial fraction of these early biotas7. Here we report a new soft-bodied fauna from the Lower Cambrian of North Greenland. This assemblage has highly significant similarities with the younger Burgess Shale, and provides additional evidence for the geological longevity of this faunal type and its widespread distribution in deeper waters of Cambrian oceans.
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Morris, S., Peel, J., Higgins, A. et al. A Burgess shale-like fauna from the Lower Cambrian of North Greenland. Nature 326, 181–183 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1038/326181a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/326181a0
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