Cryptic Disc Structures Resembling Ediacaran Discoidal Fossils from the Lower Silurian Hellefjord Schist, Arctic Norway.

• Published in: PLOS ONE
• Main Authors: Christopher L Kirkland, Breandán A MacGabhann, Brian L Kirkland, J Stephen Daly
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2016
• Subjects: Medicine; R; Science; Q; Arctic; Norway; Holdfast
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0164071; https://doaj.org/article/1b1b7bb903dd4c36b09ed766618a8ee7

The Hellefjord Schist, a volcaniclastic psammite-pelite formation in the Caledonides of Arctic Norway contains discoidal impressions and apparent tube casts that share morphological and taphonomic similarities to Neoproterozoic stem-holdfast forms. U-Pb zircon geochronology on the host metasediment indicates it was deposited between 437 ± 2 and 439 ± 3 Ma, but also indicates that an inferred basal conglomerate to this formation must be part of an older stratigraphic element, as it is cross-cut by a 546 ± 4 Ma pegmatite. These results confirm that the Hellefjord Schist is separated from underlying older Proterozoic rocks by a thrust. It has previously been argued that the Cambrian Substrate Revolution destroyed the ecological niches that the Neoproterozoic frond-holdfasts organisms occupied. However, the discovery of these fossils in Silurian rocks demonstrates that the environment and substrate must have been similar enough to Neoproterozoic settings that frond-holdfast bodyplans were still ecologically viable some hundred million years later.