Palaeopascichnus delicatus
palij, 1976
Palaeopascichnus from the Wonoka Formation, South Australia. Specimen SAM P36855.
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Palaeopascichnus is an unusual fossil found in shallow marine depositional environments worldwide during the latest Ediacaran Period. It is composed of a series of progressively expanding 'sausage-shaped' units, which often branch after reaching a certain size.
It has been variously interpreted as a trace fossil (Palij, 1976), a bedding-parallel stromatolite (Runnegar, 1995), a brown alga (Haines, 2000) and a giant protozoan (Seilacher et al., 2003). A recent paper assessing the growth and development in Palaeopascichnus arguably described it as a body fossil of a protozoan organism (Antcliffe et al., 2011). |
Described from:
Flinders Ranges, South Australia Newfoundland, Canada Khorbusuonka River, Siberia, Russia Key references: Palij, 1976 Runnegar, 1995 Haines, 2000 Jensen et al., 2003 Seilacher et al., 2003 Antcliffe et al., 2011 Palij, V.M., Posti, E. & Fedonkin, M.A., 1979. Soft-bodied Metazoa and trace fossils of Vendian and Lower Cambrian. In Upper Precambrian and Cambrian Paleontology of East-European Platform. Keller, B.M. & Rozanov, A.Yu., eds, Moscow, Nauka, 49-82. |