Neoproterozoic Microfossils from the Margin of the East European Platform and the Search for a Biostratigraphic Model of Lower Ediacaran Rocks

A ca. 600 m thick siliciclastic succession in northern Russia contains abundant and diverse microfossils that document early to middle Ediacaran deposition along the northeastern margin of the East European Platform. The Vychegda Formation is poorly exposed but is well documented by a core drilled in the Timan trough region (Kel’tminskaya-1 borehole). Vychegda siliciclastics lie unconformably above Tonian to lower Cryogenian strata and below equivalents of the late Ediacaran Redkino succession that is widely distributed across the platform. The basal ten meters of the formation preserve acritarchs and fragments of problematic macrofossils known elsewhere only from pre-Sturtian successions. In contrast, the upper, nearly 400 m of the succession contains abundant and diverse large acanthomorphic acritarchs attributable to the Ediacaran Complex Acanthomorph Palynoflora (ECAP). This distinctive set of taxa is known elsewhere only from lower, but not lowermost, Ediacaran rocks. In between lies an additional assemblage of relatively simple filaments and stratigraphically long ranging Manuscript Click here to view linked References