Dongjie Tang, Xiaoying Shi, Longfei Sun, Robert Riding
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Earth's earliest known framework reef, ~1500-million-year-old Yesanpo Mound in the Wumishan Formation, North China, consists of columns and cones built by innumerable conjoined originally aragonitic ministromatolites, each ≤ 2 cm wide. The Mound contains numerous irregular, decimetric, cavities. These are now filled with carbonate mud, giant ooids, and originally aragonitic marine cement. The role of ministromatolites in constructing this modular framework very broadly resembles that of polyps in present-day scleractinian coral colonies. Yesanpo Mound preserves geochemical signatures and traces of organic filaments consistent with suboxic conditions, yet it predates the earliest reported reef-dwelling animals by ~600 Myr. Similar spaces in reef framework may have provided ideal habitats for cryptic biota during the late Proterozoic. These are prime targets in the continued search for early animal life.
期刊介绍：
The field of geobiology explores the relationship between life and the Earth''s physical and chemical environment. Geobiology, launched in 2003, aims to provide a natural home for geobiological research, allowing the cross-fertilization of critical ideas, and promoting cooperation and advancement in this emerging field. We also aim to provide you with a forum for the rapid publication of your results in an international journal of high standing. We are particularly interested in papers crossing disciplines and containing both geological and biological elements, emphasizing the co-evolutionary interactions between life and its physical environment over geological time.
Geobiology invites submission of high-quality articles in the following areas:
Origins and evolution of life
Co-evolution of the atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere
The sedimentary rock record and geobiology of critical intervals
Paleobiology and evolutionary ecology
Biogeochemistry and global elemental cycles
Microbe-mineral interactions
Biomarkers
Molecular ecology and phylogenetics.
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