Half the species in a new Cambrian fossil site are completely new to us

Great find, Boss.

Very cool, edgar. China is a bit of a gold mine for hominid archaeology as well.

China’s got some really cool fossil sites.

This really gos back to the early 1980's when the Maotianshan Shales were firt opened for investigation. The cultural revolution forbade anything as useless as Paleontology to be pursued.
The geology of this ntire area was a silty shallow sea where turbidity currents piled up thick very fine grained clays and siltstones that formed a classicKonservat Lagerstatten pretty much like the Burgess Shales of Canada.

This adds more fuel to the fire that the "Cambrian Explosion" had its roots further back than previous thought. 2 of the species tentatively identified have possible fossil connections to the early "trilobite-like" fossils found in the Flinders Hill deposits of the post Cryogenian pre Cambrian. This gives doubt to the concept of "Sudden Appearance" in earliest Cambrian strat (So far). Lots of newer forms of annelids, comb jellies and other species with arlier "radial" symmetry



SCience will be all over this to identify index fossil layers in order to see whether the time sequences can be traced geographically farther than just this inland sea. Im not sure there are any resources in the rock units

Thanks for bringing this to our attention edgar. A fascinating subject.

What got me was the Great Unconformity. I try to keep up with paleontology news, but this is the first time I've ever heard of this. My wife took an undergraduate Geology course a few semesters ago and this wasn't mentioned at all.

the Cryogenian hasnt been fully described . Theyve had several pulses of morainal deposits and paleo"soils" that are not aerially connected. I remember when Trump was elected and was introduced to the concept of the US Geological SUrvey, he was supposed to have said,
"Well when is this survey going to be done"?
Probably never what with all the new stuff that arises.

I thought that had always been pretty obvious. After all, the creatures of the Cambrian didn't just poof in out of nowhere. The illusion of an "explosion" is just the result of empty spots in the record due to limited exposure of geologic structures from certain times. Going back beyond this, the empty spots are due to an even more intransigent problem; the organisms were soft, and just don't fossilize as easily (or in as many conditions). The only reason we recognize stromatolites as fauna is because their secretions collect particulates which form structures. Otherwise they would be invisible to us, as many of the things that existed back then probably are. We picture the precambrian seas as full of all the things that we find fossils of, but the reality is that those are probably only a tiny fraction of what was really there.

The same applies to almost every epoch of history. As humans we can't help but picture the world full of only thing things we see. As such, Tyranosaurs, Stegasaurs, Pteradons, Ambylocetus, Anomalocaris and Pikaia were probably the "squirrels" of their age, the most common of the fauna. Likewise, any soft-bodies creatures which didn't fossilize are invisible to us, even though the seas of the Ediacarian were probably teeming with them.

That was a great time for insects--the partial pressure of oxygen in the ambient atmosphere reached about 30%. Big bugs!

yes but wevenever really been certain about ages of the Ediacaran fauna an the "Sudden Appearance" of the sustaining creatures in the lower Cambrian. As we get closer and closer to an initial basal Cambrian, the more that its probable that those various "stem" groups like Trilobites had "ancestors"

Several of those Burgess fossils didnt go beyond the Burgess time.

SCience attempts to make some really overly repeatable, over-evidenced findings before rolling out the announcements.

Only the Creationists can use statements like "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". SCience MUST make sure otherwise we have nothing worth screaming at in Conferences.

'at'?

each other--we are just like any other dysfunctional family

Totally off topic note to leadfoot and farmerchap

Just grabbed a 2008 Infiniti M35X with 31,500 miles in absolutely new condition for $10,000. Couldn't pass that up.

not with 30 k on it. Was it a show car?.

Nope. Older couple, bought and correctly serviced at local dealer, no accident reports. I got lucky. Interior is immaculate. Drives like a dream. Doesn't have the ritzier Bose system but I rarely listen to music while driving and the existing system is wonderful anyway. PS I converted the figures to US miles and dollars.

Congrats! Sweet deal. Never owned but a test drive in one was impressive. Liked the interior more than the skin though.

Yup. Theists aren't any better.

Yeah, the G coupe is the prettiest of the bunch, for sure. But I'm guessing this one will age well in its ext. design. It is the interior that's exceptional. I think it wouldn't be inappropriate for Queen Elizabeth and I to make out in that back seat.

If that's what you're into.