Comparative Taphonomy of the Vendian Genera Beltanelloides and Nemiana as a Key to their True Nature

Beltanelloides sorichevae Sokolov, 1965 is one of these simple forms. This taxon was originally described from sediments of the Upper Vendian of the European Platform, in the White Sea region. Organisms were typically preserved as negative, rounded impressions with thin, irregular concentric wrinkles on the periphery of an organic film. Remains lay in beds of massive, structureless clay. Such imprints had the same structure both on the upper and lower surfaces of the rock. When fossils were found close to one another, they lay preserved on different levels (Fig.1). The enclosing clay deforms both above and below the fossils.