Trace fossils from Silurian slope deposits, North Greenland

Notes on Silurian Fossils from Ohio and Other Central States

Behavioral biology of trace fossils

—The potential of the ichnofossil record for exploring the evolution of behavior has never been fully realized. Some of this is due to the nature of the trace fossil record itself. Equally responsible is the separation of ichnology from the relevant areas of modern behavioral biology. The two disciplines have virtually no concepts, methods, or literature in common. The study of animal behavior ...

Cryptic Disc Structures Resembling Ediacaran Discoidal Fossils from the Lower Silurian Hellefjord Schist, Arctic Norway

The Hellefjord Schist, a volcaniclastic psammite-pelite formation in the Caledonides of Arctic Norway contains discoidal impressions and apparent tube casts that share morphological and taphonomic similarities to Neoproterozoic stem-holdfast forms. U-Pb zircon geochronology on the host metasediment indicates it was deposited between 437 ± 2 and 439 ± 3 Ma, but also indicates that an inferred ba...

Paleoarchean trace fossils in altered volcanic glass.

Microbial corrosion textures in volcanic glass from Cenozoic seafloor basalts and the corresponding titanite replacement microtextures in metamorphosed Paleoarchean pillow lavas have been interpreted as evidence for a deep biosphere dating back in time through the earliest periods of preserved life on earth. This interpretation has been recently challenged for Paleoarchean titanite replacement ...

Precambrian Biota: Protistan Origin of Trace Fossils?

Some Precambrian trace fossils have been presented as evidence for the early origin of bilaterians; the recent finding that large amoeboid protists leave macroscopic traces at the bottom of the deep ocean questions the metazoan nature of early trace fossils, stressing the importance of single-cell organisms in Precambrian biota.