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Melanosclerite
The Melanosclerites are a group of problematic microfossils obtained by palynological processing. Morphology The form-taxon contains a wide array of rod-like fossils, 100 μm to some mm long, that culminate in a broad bulbous 'head', often separated from the stalk by a constriction. The bulbous end may bear broad 'prongs', giving the appearance of the end of a human femur where the prongs are paired, although the prongs often occur in higher number – five, six, a dozen – with some resemblance to ''Namacalathus''. Affinity The affinity of melanosclerites is uncertain; algal has been proposed, but hydrozoan (cnidarian) is preferred, though not conclusively established. ''Melanoscleritoites'' Eisenack, 1963 is interpreted as a hydrozoan, with other taxa not attributable to that particular class, on the basis of a broad morphological similarity – though the distinguishing features are far from unequivocal, and the preservation of the material raises some taphonomic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microfossil
A microfossil is a fossil that is generally between 0.001 mm and 1 mm in size, the visual study of which requires the use of light or electron microscopy. A fossil which can be studied with the naked eye or low-powered magnification, such as a hand lens, is referred to as a macrofossil. Microfossils are a common feature of the geological record, from the Precambrian to the Holocene. They are most common in deposits of marine environments, but also occur in brackish water, fresh water and terrestrial sedimentary deposits. While every kingdom of life is represented in the microfossil record, the most abundant forms are protist skeletons or microbial cysts from the Chrysophyta, Pyrrhophyta, Sarcodina, acritarchs and chitinozoans, together with pollen and spores from the vascular plants. Overview A microfossil is a descriptive term applied to fossilized plants and animals whose size is just at or below the level at which the fossil can be analyzed by the naked eye. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palynological Processing
Palynology is the "study of dust" (from grc-gre, παλύνω, palynō, "strew, sprinkle" and ''-logy'') or of "particles that are strewn". A classic palynologist analyses particulate samples collected from the air, from water, or from deposits including sediments of any age. The condition and identification of those particles, organic and inorganic, give the palynologist clues to the life, environment, and energetic conditions that produced them. The term is commonly used to refer to a subset of the discipline, which is defined as "the study of microscopic objects of macromolecular organic composition (i.e., compounds of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen), not capable of dissolution in hydrochloric or hydrofluoric acids". It is the science that studies contemporary and fossil palynomorphs (paleopalynology), including pollen, spores, orbicules, dinocysts, acritarchs, chitinozoans and scolecodonts, together with particulate organic matter (POM) and kerogen found in sed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Namacalathus
''Namacalathus'' is a problematic metazoan fossil occurring in the latest Ediacaran. The first, and only described species, ''N. hermanastes'', was first described in 2000 from the Nama Group of central and southern Namibia. A U–Pb zircon age from the fossiliferous rock in Namibia and Oman provides an age for the ''Namacalathus'' zone in the range from 549 to 542 Ma, which corresponds to the Late Ediacaran. Alongside '' Namapoikia'' and '' Cloudina'', these organisms are the oldest known evidence in the fossil record of the emergence of calcified skeletal formation in metazoans, a prominent feature in animals appearing later in the Early Cambrian. Shore ''et al.'' (2021) reported the first three-dimensional, pyritized preservation of soft tissue in ''Namacalathus hermanastes'' from the Nama Group (Namibia), and evaluate the implications of this finding for the knowledge of the phylogenetic relationships of this animal; they suggest it is an ancestor of Lophotrochozoan animals ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrozoan
Hydrozoa (hydrozoans; ) are a taxonomic class of individually very small, predatory animals, some solitary and some colonial, most of which inhabit saline water. The colonies of the colonial species can be large, and in some cases the specialized individual animals cannot survive outside the colony. A few genera within this class live in freshwater habitats. Hydrozoans are related to jellyfish and corals and belong to the phylum Cnidaria. Some examples of hydrozoans are the freshwater jelly (''Craspedacusta sowerbyi''), freshwater polyps ('' Hydra''), ''Obelia'', Portuguese man o' war (''Physalia physalis''), chondrophores (Porpitidae), "air fern" (''Sertularia argentea''), and pink-hearted hydroids (''Tubularia''). Anatomy Most hydrozoan species include both a polypoid and a medusoid stage in their lifecycles, although a number of them have only one or the other. For example, ''Hydra'' has no medusoid stage, while '' Liriope'' lacks the polypoid stage. Polyps The hydroid f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taphonomic
Taphonomy is the study of how organisms decay and become fossilized or preserved in the paleontological record. The term ''taphonomy'' (from Greek , 'burial' and , 'law') was introduced to paleontology in 1940 by Soviet scientist Ivan Efremov to describe the study of the transition of remains, parts, or products of organisms from the biosphere to the lithosphere. The term taphomorph is used to describe fossil structures that represent poorly-preserved, deteriorated remains of a mixture of taxonomic groups, rather than of a single one. Description Taphonomic phenomena are grouped into two phases: biostratinomy, events that occur between death of the organism and the burial; and diagenesis, events that occur after the burial. Since Efremov's definition, taphonomy has expanded to include the fossilization of organic and inorganic materials through both cultural and environmental influences. This is a multidisciplinary concept and is used in slightly different contexts th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chitinozoans
Chitinozoa (singular: chitinozoan, plural: chitinozoans) are a group of flask-shaped, organic walled marine microfossils produced by an as yet unknown organism. Common from the Ordovician to Devonian periods (i.e. the mid-Paleozoic), the millimetre-scale organisms are abundant in almost all types of marine sediment across the globe. This wide distribution, and their rapid pace of evolution, makes them valuable biostratigraphic markers. Their bizarre form has made classification and ecological reconstruction difficult. Since their discovery in 1931, suggestions of protist, plant, and fungal affinities have all been entertained. The organisms have been better understood as improvements in microscopy facilitated the study of their fine structure, and it has been suggested that they represent either the eggs or juvenile stage of a marine animal. However, recent research has suggested that they represent the hard shell of a group of protists with uncertain affinities. Chitinozoa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scolecodonts
A scolecodont is the jaw of a polychaete annelid, a common type of fossil-producing segmented worm useful in invertebrate paleontology. Scolecodonts are common and diverse microfossils, which range from the Cambrian period (around half a billion years ago at the start of the Paleozoic era) to the present. They diversified profusely in the Ordovician, and are most common in the Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian marine deposits of the Paleozoic era. Relatedly, more problematic worm-like fossils have been described in even older, Neoproterozoic era deposits in the Ediacaran Hills of southern Australia and in mid-Cambrian deposits of Burgess shale in British Columbia. Since the other classes of annelids (specifically, the earthworms and leeches) lack hard parts, only the sea-dwelling polychaetes are frequently represented in the fossil record. Polychaetes are commonly fossilized due to their chitinous teeth and their dwelling tubes made of durable calcite (a calcium carbonate), h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graptolite
Graptolites are a group of colonial animals, members of the subclass Graptolithina within the class Pterobranchia. These filter-feeding organisms are known chiefly from fossils found from the Middle Cambrian (Miaolingian, Wuliuan) through the Lower Carboniferous ( Mississippian). A possible early graptolite, ''Chaunograptus'', is known from the Middle Cambrian. Recent analyses have favored the idea that the living pterobranch ''Rhabdopleura'' represents an extant graptolite which diverged from the rest of the group in the Cambrian. Fossil graptolites and ''Rhabdopleura'' share a colony structure of interconnected zooids housed in organic tubes (theca) which have a basic structure of stacked half-rings (fuselli). Most extinct graptolites belong to two major orders: the bush-like sessile Dendroidea and the planktonic, free-floating Graptoloidea. These orders most likely evolved from encrusting pterobranchs similar to ''Rhabdopleura''. Due to their widespread abundance, plantkonic l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fungi
A fungus (plural, : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of Eukaryote, eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and Mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a Kingdom (biology), kingdom, separately from the other eukaryotic kingdoms, which by one traditional classification include Plantae, Animalia, Protozoa, and Chromista. A characteristic that places fungi in a different kingdom from plants, bacteria, and some protists is chitin in their cell walls. Fungi, like animals, are heterotrophs; they acquire their food by absorbing dissolved molecules, typically by secreting digestive enzymes into their environment. Fungi do not photosynthesize. Growth is their means of motility, mobility, except for spores (a few of which are flagellated), which may travel through the air or water. Fungi are the principal decomposers in ecological systems. These and other differences place fungi in a single gro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cubomedusan
Carybdeida is an order of box jellyfish Box jellyfish (class Cubozoa) are cnidaria Cnidaria () is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic animals found both in Fresh water, freshwater and Marine habitats, marine environments, predominantly the latt .... There are five families within the order. They are distinguished from other box jellyfish by the presence of unbranched muscular bases at the corners of the cubic umbrella. Most species have four tentacles. References Cubozoa {{Cubozoa-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) because they are the most resistant minerals to weathering processes at the Earth's surface. Like uncemented sand, sandstone may be any color due to impurities within the minerals, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow, red, grey, pink, white, and black. Since sandstone beds often form highly visible cliffs and other topographic features, certain colors of sandstone have been strongly identified with certain regions. Rock formations that are primarily composed of sandstone usually allow the percolation of water and other fluids and are porous enough to store large quantities, making them valuable aquifers and petroleum reservoirs. Quartz-bearing sandstone can be changed into quartzite through metamorphism, usually r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms when these minerals precipitate out of water containing dissolved calcium. This can take place through both biological and nonbiological processes, though biological processes, such as the accumulation of corals and shells in the sea, have likely been more important for the last 540 million years. Limestone often contains fossils which provide scientists with information on ancient environments and on the evolution of life. About 20% to 25% of sedimentary rock is carbonate rock, and most of this is limestone. The remaining carbonate rock is mostly dolomite, a closely related rock, which contains a high percentage of the mineral dolomite, . ''Magnesian limestone'' is an obsolete and poorly-defined term used variously for dolomite, for lime ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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