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Orsten
The Orsten fauna are fossilized organisms preserved in the Orsten lagerstätte of Cambrian (Late Miaolingian to Furongian) rocks, notably at Kinnekulle and on the island of Öland, all in Sweden. The initial site, discovered in 1975 by Klaus Müller and his assistants, exceptionally preserves soft-bodied organisms, and their larvae, who are preserved uncompacted in three dimensions. The fossils are phosphatized and silicified, thus the delicate chitinous cuticle and soft parts are not affected by acids, which act upon the limestone nodules within which the fossils have survived. Acids dissolve the limestone, revealing the microfossils in a recovery process called "acid etching". To recover the fossils, more than one and a half tons of Orsten limestone have been dissolved in acid, originally in a specifically designed laboratory in Bonn, more recently moved to Ulm. The insoluble residue is scanned by electron microscope. The phosphorus used to replace the fossils with calcium p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phosphatocopina
Phosphatocopina (alternatively Phosphatocopida) is an extinct group of bivalved arthropods known from the Cambrian period. They are generally sub-milimetric to a few millimetres in size. They are typically only known from isolated carapaces, but some found in Orsten-type phosphatized preservation have their bodies preserved in high fidelity in three dimensions. Description The phosphatized bivalved carapace covered the entire body. Members typically grew to a maximum of in length, though ''Cyclotron'' grew up to . In some species, spines were present on the carapace. The head either bore a pair of stalked eyes or a pair of dome-shaped medial eyes. The first appendage pair, dubbed the " antennulae", were uniramous, with the remaining appendage pairs being biramous. The basipods and endopods of the biramous limbs had prominently developed endites, while the exopods were typically annulated, and bore setae. The earliest larval stages of phosphatocopines are known as "head larv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tardigrade
Tardigrades (), known colloquially as water bears or moss piglets, are a phylum of eight-legged segmented micro-animals. They were first described by the German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773, who called them . In 1776, the Italian biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani named them Tardigrada, which means 'slow walkers'. They live in diverse regions of Earth's biospheremountaintops, the deep sea, tropical rainforests, and the Antarctic. Tardigrades are among the most resilient animals known, with individual species able to survive extreme conditions – such as exposure to extreme temperatures, extreme pressures (both high and low), air deprivation, radiation, dehydration, and starvation – that would quickly kill most other forms of life. Tardigrades have survived exposure to outer space. There are about 1,500 known species in the phylum Tardigrada, a part of the superphylum Ecdysozoa. The earliest known fossil is from the Cambrian, some 500 million years ago ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alum Shale Formation
The Alum Shale Formation (also known as alum schist and alum slate) is a formation of black shale of Miaolingian (Middle Cambrian) to Tremadocian (Lower Ordovician) in age found predominantly in southern Scandinavia. It is shale or clay slate containing pyrite. Decomposition of pyrite by weathering forms sulfuric acid, which acts on potash and alumina constituents to form alum, which often occurs as efflorescences on the rock outcrop. As the formation contains kerogen originated from algae, it is also classified as marinite-type oil shale. At the same time it is rich in aromatic hydrocarbon attributed to post-depositional irradiation damage to saturated hydrocarbons, induced by uranium concentration in the shale. Alum shale also contains enhanced levels of radium as a result of uranium decay. Between 1950 and 1989, Sweden used alum shale for the uranium production. 8502 specimens of trilobite- agnostoid fauna were found in the Furongian strata of this formation in Bornho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pentastomid
The Pentastomida are an enigmatic group of parasite, parasitic arthropods commonly known as tongue worms due to the resemblance of the species of the genus ''Linguatula'' to a vertebrate tongue; molecular studies point to them being highly derived crustaceans. About 130 species of pentastomids are known; all are obligate parasites with correspondingly degenerate anatomy. Adult tongue worms vary from about in length and parasitize the respiratory tracts of vertebrates. They have five anterior appendages. One is the mouth; the others are two pairs of hooks, which they use to attach to the host. This arrangement led to their scientific name, meaning "five openings", but although the appendages are similar in some species, only one is a mouth. Taxonomy Historically significant accounts of tongue worm biology and systematics include early work by Josef Aloys Frölich, Alexander von Humboldt, Karl Asmund Rudolphi, Karl Moriz Diesing and Rudolph Leuckart. Other important summaries h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meiofauna
Meiobenthos, also called meiofauna, are small benthic invertebrates that live in marine or freshwater environments, or both. The term ''meiofauna'' loosely defines a group of organisms by their sizelarger than microfauna but smaller than macrofaunarather than by their taxonomy. This fauna includes both animals that turn into macrofauna later in life, and those small enough to belong to the meiobenthos their entire life. In marine environments there can be thousands of individuals in 10 cubic centimeters of sediment, and counts animals like nematodes, copepods, rotifers, tardigrades and ostracods, but protists like ciliates and foraminifers within the size range of the meiobenthos are also often included. In practice, the term usually includes organisms that can pass through a 1 mm mesh but are retained by a 45 μm mesh, though exact dimensions may vary. Whether an organism will pass through a 1 mm mesh also depends upon whether it is alive or dead at the time of so ... [...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 e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nodule (geology)
In geology and particularly in sedimentology, a nodule is a small, irregularly rounded knot, mass, or lump of a mineral or mineral aggregate that typically has a contrasting composition from the enclosing sediment or sedimentary rock. Examples include pyrite nodules in coal, a chert nodule in limestone, or a phosphorite nodule in marine shale. Normally, a nodule has a warty or knobby surface and exists as a discrete mass within the host strata. In general, they lack any internal structure except for the preserved remnants of original bedding or fossils. Nodules are closely related to '' concretions'' and sometimes these terms are used interchangeably. Minerals that typically form nodules include calcite, chert, apatite (phosphorite), anhydrite, and pyrite.Neuendorf, KKE, JP Mehl, Jr., and JA Jackson, eds. (2005) ''Glossary of Geology'' (5th ed.). Alexandria, Virginia, American Geological Institute. 779 pp. Boggs S, Jr. (2009) ''Petrology of Sedimentary Rocks.'' Cambridge Univ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite.Blatt, Harvey and Robert J. Tracy (1996) ''Petrology: Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic'', 2nd ed., Freeman, pp. 281–292 Shale is characterized by its tendency to split into thin layers (Lamination (geology), laminae) less than one centimeter in thickness. This property is called ''Fissility (geology), fissility''. Shale is the most common sedimentary rock. The term ''shale'' is sometimes applied more broadly, as essentially a synonym for mudrock, rather than in the narrower sense of clay-rich fissile mudrock. Texture Shale typically exhibits varying degrees of fissility. Because of the parallel orientation of clay mineral flakes in shale, it breaks in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alum
An alum () is a type of chemical compound, usually a hydrated double salt, double sulfate salt (chemistry), salt of aluminium with the general chemical formula, formula , such that is a valence (chemistry), monovalent cation such as potassium or ammonium. By itself, "alum" often refers to potassium alum, with the formula . Other alums are named after the monovalent ion, such as sodium alum and ammonium alum. The name "alum" is also used, more generally, for salts with the same formula and structure, except that aluminium is replaced by another Valence (chemistry), trivalent metal ion like chromium#Chromium(III), chromium, or sulfur is replaced by another chalcogen like selenium. The most common of these analogs is chrome alum . In most industries, the name "alum" (or "papermaker's alum") is used to refer to aluminium sulfate, , which is used for most industrial flocculation (the variable is an integer whose size depends on the amount of water absorbed into the alum). For medi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benthic
The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning "the depths". Organisms living in this zone are called benthos and include microorganisms (e.g., bacteria and fungi) as well as larger invertebrates, such as crustaceans and polychaetes. Organisms here, known as bottom dwellers, generally live in close relationship with the substrate and many are permanently attached to the bottom. The benthic boundary layer, which includes the bottom layer of water and the uppermost layer of sediment directly influenced by the overlying water, is an integral part of the benthic zone, as it greatly influences the biological activity that takes place there. Examples of contact soil layers include sand bottoms, rocky outcrops, coral, and bay mud. Description Oceans The benthic region of the ocean begins at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthropod
Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an arthropod exoskeleton, exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often Mineralization (biology), mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated (Metamerism (biology), metameric) Segmentation (biology), segments, and paired jointed appendages. In order to keep growing, they must go through stages of moulting, a process by which they shed their exoskeleton to reveal a new one. They form an extremely diverse group of up to ten million species. Haemolymph is the analogue of blood for most arthropods. An arthropod has an open circulatory system, with a body cavity called a haemocoel through which haemolymph circulates to the interior Organ (anatomy), organs. Like their exteriors, the internal organs of arthropods are generally built of repeated segments. They have ladder-like nervous systems, with paired Anatomical terms of location#Dorsal and ventral, ventral Ventral nerve cord, nerve cord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darwinian Evolution
''Darwinism'' is a term used to describe a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others. The theory states that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. Also called ''Darwinian theory'', it originally included the broad concepts of transmutation of species or of evolution which gained general scientific acceptance after Darwin published ''On the Origin of Species'' in 1859, including concepts which predated Darwin's theories. English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the term ''Darwinism'' in April 1860. Terminology ''Darwinism'' subsequently referred to the specific concepts of natural selection, the Weismann barrier, or the central dogma of molecular biology. Though the term usually refers strictly to biological evolution, creationists have appropriated it to refer to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
