Preliminary notes on softbodied fossil concentrations from the Early Cambrian Chengjiang deposits

The Chengjiang fauna has played a pivotal role in our understanding of the origin and diversification of metazoans since its discovery in 1984. To date, this fauna has been documented as consisting of 121 genera with 140 species belonging to 24 phyla1-27]. The geo- graphic distribution of the Chengjiang fauna has been expanded from Chengjiang County to eastern Yunnan Province including Haikou, Malong, Yiliang, Anning and elsewhere25-33], with about 20 localities in to- tal25,33]. Succes…

Preliminary notes on soft-bodied fossil concentrations from the Early Cambrian Chengjiang deposits

The efforts of labor-intensive collecting in the Early Cambrian Chengjiang deposits in eastern Yunnan Province, China led to the discovery of many horizons containing exceptionally well preserved soft-bodied fossil concentrations, many of which can be assigned to either monospecific concentrations or paucispecific concentrations. The features of these fossil concentrations support the hypothesis that frequent storm events producing tempestites mainly contributed to the preservation of abundant soft- bodied fossils in the Chengjiang deposits, and indi- cate that the balance of the ecological web in this region was probably frequently destroyed or upset by such storm events during that geological time. Ani- mals in a fossil assemblage in such fossil concentra- tions probably occupied similar ecological biotopes.