Macroalgal holdfasts and their interaction with environments from the Neoproterozoic Doushantuo Formation in Guizhou, South China

Abstract

Numerous macro-organisms of the Doushantuo macrobiota, which were found in the black carbonaceous mudstone of the upper Neoproterozoic Ediacraan Doushantuo Formation in Jiangkou County, Guizhou Province, China, are considered to live on sea floor by their holdfasts. The appearance and preserved forms of the macroalgal holdfasts may provide some data to the study of the living and buried environments of macrobiota. They lived in the lower energy and clear environment, and fixed on a soupground with rich water (about 79% water). Currents, possibly ocean currents, could pull out the macroalgal holdfasts from the soupground and break off the macroalgal foliations. After such events, the corpses of macro-organisms would be covered in a reduced environment by the deposits. Afterwards, a new community, including regenerating and undying macro-organisms, lived continuously on a new deposit.

Evolution of Holdfast Diversity and Attachment Strategies of Ediacaran Benthic Macroalgae

“…This black shale member is interpreted as transgressive sediments deposited during sea-level rise (Jiang et al, 2007;Jiang et al, 2011), which may represent a restricted intra-shelf basin setting in the Yangtze Gorges area (Zhu et al, 2013) at low paleolatitudes (Li et al, 2008), and probably represent a continental slope environment in the Wenghui area (Jiang et al, 2011). The surface sediment of the Wenghui area was considered to be soupy (Wang and Wang, 2008).…”