Abundant graphite particles occur in amphibolite-grade quartzite of the Archean-Paleoproterozoic Wutai Metamorphic Complex in the Wutaishan area of North China. Petrographic thin section observations suggest that the graphite particles occur within and between quartzite clasts and are heterogeneous in origin. Using HF maceration techniques, the Wutai graphite particles were extracted for furthe...

Recent geochemical data from Oman, Newfoundland, and the western United States suggest that long-term oxidation of Ediacaran oceans resulted in progressive depletion of a large dissolved organic carbon (DOC) reservoir and potentially triggered the radiation of acanthomorphic acritarchs, algae, macroscopic Ediacara organisms, and, subsequently, motile bilaterian animals. However, the hypothesize...

The Global Stratotype Section and Point for the newly defined Ediacaran System has been ratified at the base of the cap carbonate in Enorama Creek. A near-continuous section from the Marinoan glaciation to the base of the Cambrian is exposed in the Flinders Ranges, with type sections of included stratigraphic units exposed in the area around Brachina and Bunyeroo gorges. The stratigraphy and lo...

Fifty-seven samples taken from ten piston cores collected along a transect off the continental margin of the Northern Basin, Ross Sea, Antarctica were analyzed for palynomorphs. Moderately diverse assemblages of marine microplankton and terrestrial palynomorphs were recovered. The palynomorph assemblages have been subdivided into two main groups: the in-situ flora (including acritarchs, dinofla...

Embryos have been found in ‘old’ rocks on four continents, especially in Siberia, Nevada, Australia and China. They have been discovered in sedimentary rocks of even Late Neoproterozoic age, assuming the evolutionary geological column1 (figure 1). The Neoproterozoic is the period, so called, between 1 billion and 550 million years ago. This discovery was in the Doushantuo Formation, Guizhou Pro...

Ireland is well known to geologists as containing some of the thickest successions of Early Ordovician (485!470 Ma; Walker et al. 2012) sedimentary rocks in the world. The carbon stable isotope compositions (dC value) of similarly aged rocks have been reported for only very few places in the world (i.e., Argentina, southern China, and southern France), and no such analyses have been performed o...

Palynological material is the entire acid-resistant microscopic organic matter recovered from a sediment or sedimentary rock. This can be subdivided into three broad classes: palynomorphs (i.e., dinoflagellate cysts, spores, pollen, acritarchs, foraminiferal linings, fungal material and algae), palynodebris (i.e., membranous, brown and opaque material) and amorphous OM. The research articulated...

The upper part of the Permian succession in Bowen Basin Queensland, NE Australia, was investigated to ascertain timeline and character environmental changes this high southern palaeolatitudinal setting leading up End-Permian Extinction (EPE). study focused on (in ascending order) Peawaddy Formation, Black Alley Shale, Bandanna laterally correlative units. In western Basin, base Formation (257 M...