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The Weng'an Biota is a fossil Konservat-Lagerstätte in South China that is c. 570 – 609 myr old and provides an unparalleled snapshot of marine life during the interval in which molecular clocks estimate that animal clades were diversifying. It yields fossils that are three-dimensionally preserved in calcium phosphate with cellular and sometimes …
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The Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation (ca. 635–551 Ma) in South China contains exceptionally well-preserved fossils of multicellular eukaryotes including early animals, and it is one of the most intensively investigated Ediacaran units in the world.Various stratigraphic methods including litho-, chemo-, bio-, and sequence …
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The Doushantuo Formation is sedimentologically discontinuous, partially condensed and comprises several un- and paraconformities involving hiati of unknown duration. Therefore, the species and zone ranges, with the exception of the two basal zones that are bracketed by isotopic datings, are approximate. The biotic radiations documented by ...
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The Doushantuo Shale samples yield CIA* values mostly of 59.41–83.81, with an overall average of 69.63 (Table 5 and Fig. 9), indicative of cold and arid climate, although the range of CIA* variability in the Upper, Middle, and Lower units is <80 (except for isolated outlier samples EY-03, EY-18, and EY-22).
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The Doushantuo and correlative strata record a fundamental shift from an interval of large carbon isotopic anomalies corresponding to glacial episodes (750 to 580 Ma) to an interval of anomalies unrelated to obvious glacial episodes (i.e., the anomalies from circa 551 and 542 Ma), as well as subsequent large fluctuations in the lower …
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