A Bangiophyte Red Alga from the Proterozoic of Arctic Canada

Silicified peritidal carbonate rocks of the 1250- to 750-million-year-old Hunting Formation, Somerset Island, arctic Canada, contain fossils of well-preserved bangiophyte red algae. Morphological details, especially the presence of multiseriate filaments composed of radially arranged wedge-shaped ce...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science
Main Authors: Butterfield, Nicholas J., Knoll, Andrew H., Swett, Keene
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 1990
Subjects:
Arctic
Canada
Somerset Island
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1126/science.11538072
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.11538072
Description
Summary:Silicified peritidal carbonate rocks of the 1250- to 750-million-year-old Hunting Formation, Somerset Island, arctic Canada, contain fossils of well-preserved bangiophyte red algae. Morphological details, especially the presence of multiseriate filaments composed of radially arranged wedge-shaped cells derived by longitudinal divisions from disc-shaped cells in uniseriate filaments, indicate that the fossils are related to extant species in the genus Bangia . Such taxonomic resolution distinguishes these fossils from other pre-Ediacaran eukaryotes and contributes to growing evidence that multicellular algae diversified well before the Ediacaran radiation of large animals.

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