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Spygoria zappania new genus and species, a Cloudina-like biohermal metazoan from the Lower Cambrian of central Nevada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2015

Marc Salak  and
Halard L. Lescinsky
Marc Salak
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of California, Davis 95616
Halard L. Lescinsky
Affiliation:
Department of Life and Earth Science, Otterbein College, Westerville, Ohio 43081
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Abstract

A new enigmatic Lower Cambrian fossil, Spygoria zappania, is described From the Nevadella zone (Botoman) of Lander County, central Nevada. In gross morphology, Spygoria fossils consist of stacks of small (5–10 mm in diameter) irregular calcified cups that are preserved in vertical, concave-up life orientation. Stacks are linked laterally into large monospecific bioherms which flourished in a shallow turbulent marine environment.

The Spygoria organism is interpreted as a metazoan which presumably inhabited the uppermost cup in each stack and periodically secreted new cups as it grew upward. Absence of holdfast structures suggest that the organism was held in place by sticky mud until opportunistically cementing to adjacent individuals. The affinity of Spygoria remains problematical, though we suggest that its stacked structure somewhat resembles the cone-in-cone structure of Cloudina, which formed similar dense thickets in shallow turbulent carbonate environments during the terminal Proterozoic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 73 , Issue 4 , July 1999 , pp. 571 - 576
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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