The middle Cambrian Linyi Lagerstätte from the North China Craton: a new window on Cambrian evolutionary fauna

Zhixin Sun; Fangchen Zhao; Han Zeng; Cui Luo; Heyo Van Iten; Maoyan Zhu

doi:10.1093/nsr/nwac069

The middle Cambrian Linyi Lagerstätte from the North China Craton: a new window on Cambrian evolutionary fauna

Natl Sci Rev. 2022 Apr 5;9(7):nwac069. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwac069. eCollection 2022 Jul.

Authors

Zhixin Sun¹, Fangchen Zhao¹, Han Zeng¹, Cui Luo¹, Heyo Van Iten², Maoyan Zhu¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, and Center for Excellence in Life and Palaeoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China.
² Department of Geology, Hanover College, Hanover, IN 47243, USA.

Abstract

The rapid appearance of major animal groups and complex marine communities during the Cambrian explosion is recorded in large part in Burgess Shale-type lagerstätten. However, the restricted temporal and spatial distribution of known lagerstätten continues to hinder the formation of a comprehensive perspective on Cambrian evolutionary faunas. Here we describe the Linyi Lagerstätte (ca. 504 mya), a new Cambrian Miaolingian lagerstätte from the Zhangxia Formation in Shandong Province, North China. The Linyi Lagerstätte contains a variety of well-preserved soft-bodied fossils, among which the non-trilobite arthropods, particularly the mollisoniids and radiodonts, are the most important groups. The new assemblage is remarkable for its excellent preservation of arthropod limbs, eyes and guts, as well as for its close similarity in taxonomic composition to Laurentian lagerstätten. The distinctive Linyi Lagerstätte holds great promise for providing additional insights into the morphological disparity, community structure and paleogeographic range of marine faunas during the middle Cambrian (Miaolingian).

Keywords: Cambrian explosion; Drumian; Mollisoniidae; North China Craton; Zhangxia Formation; exceptional preservation.