Fossil preservation in the Neoproterozoic Doushantuo phosphorite Lagerstätte, South China
Open accessAbstract
Phosphorites of the late Neoproterozoic Doushantuo Formation exposed in the vicinity of Weng'an, Guizhou Province, and Chadian, Shaanxi Province, South China, contain exceptionally well-preserved algal thalli, acritarchs, and globular microfossils interpreted as animal embryos. Combined optical microscopic and SEM observations provide insights into the taphonomy of phosphatized fossils. Algal cells and tissues are variably resistant to decay, and within preserved populations permineralization began at varying stages of degradation. In consequence, there is a spectrum of quality in cellular preservation. Algal cell walls, acritarch vesicles, and embryo envelopes are commonly encrusted by an isopachous rim of apatite, with cell interiors filled by collophane and later diagenetic dolomite. In contrast, blastomere surfaces of animal embryos are encrusted primarily by minute phosphatic spherules and filaments, possibly reflecting an immediately postmortem infestation of bacteria that provided nucleation sites for phosphate crystal growth. Thus, the same processes that gave rise to Phanerozoic phosphatized Lagerstatten--phosphatic encrustation, and impregnation, probably mediated by microbial activity--effected soft-tissue preservation in the Doushantuo Lagerstatte. It remains unclear how phosphatic ions and organic macromolecules interact at the molecular level and to what extent specific microbial metabolisms or microenvironmental conditions control the phosphatization of soft ti…
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Phosphatic preservation like that in the Doushantuo appears restricted to a relatively narrow Neoproterozoic interval, and similar preservation opportunities may not occur in older rocks.
“Such unusual phosphatic preservation has been described from elsewhere in the Phanerozoic, but this complex preservational environment (Xiao and Knoll, 1999) appears restricted to a relatively narrow interval of the Neoproterozoic (Cook and Shergold, 1984).”
From The last common bilaterian ancestor (2002) · cites this paper as Xiao and Knoll, 1999
Acritarchs are the most diverse and heterogeneous fossils from the 1200-740 Mya interval and increased greatly in diversity during the Neoproterozoic.
“The most diverse and heterogeneous fossils from this interval are resistant, organic-walled microfossils known as acritarchs, which increased greatly in diversity during the Neoproterozoic (Knoll, 1996; Vidal and Moczydl ⁄ owska-Vidal, 1997; Xiao and Knoll, 1999; Zhou et al., 2001).”
From The last common bilaterian ancestor (2002) · cites this paper as Xiao and Knoll, 1999
Cites
Phosphorus, phosphorites and skeletal evolution at the Precambrian—Cambrian boundary
Cook, P. J., & Shergold, J. H. (1984) · Nature · doi:10.1038/308231a0 · Cited by 298 · see citing works
Decay and mineralization of shrimps
Briggs, D. E. G., & Kear, A. J. (1994) · PALAIOS · doi:10.2307/3515135 · Cited by 260 · see citing works
Secular distribution of Burgess-Shale-type preservation
Butterfield, N. J. (1995) · Lethaia · doi:10.1111/j.1502-3931.1995.tb01587.x · Cited by 255 · see citing works
Xunlai, Y., & Hofmann, H. J. (1998) · Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology · doi:10.1080/03115519808619200 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Exceptional Fossil Preservation and the Cambrian Explosion
Butterfield, N. J. (2003) · Integrative and Comparative Biology · doi:10.1093/icb/43.1.166 · Cited by 348 · see citing works
The last common bilaterian ancestor
Erwin, D. H., & Davidson, E. H. (2002) · Development · doi:10.1242/dev.129.13.3021 · Cited by 320 · see citing works
Eumetazoan fossils in terminal Proterozoic phosphorites?
Xiao, S., Yuan, X., & Knoll, A. H. (2000) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.250491697 · Cited by 259 · see citing works
Self-citationNew Lu–Hf and Pb–Pb age constraints on the earliest animal fossils
Barfod, G. H., Albarède, F., Knoll, A. H., Xiao, S., Télouk, P., Frei, R., & Baker, J. (2002) · Earth and Planetary Science Letters · doi:10.1016/s0012-821x(02)00687-8 · Cited by 251 · see citing works
Self-citationThe Weng'an biota and the Ediacaran radiation of multicellular eukaryotes
Xiao, S., Muscente, A. D., Chen, L., Zhou, C., Schiffbauer, J. D., Wood, A. D., Polys, N. F., & Yuan, X. (2014) · National Science Review · doi:10.1093/nsr/nwu061 · Cited by 172 · see citing works
Self-citationEarly fossil record of Euarthropoda and the Cambrian explosion
Daley, A. C., Antcliffe, J. B., Drage, H. B., & Pates, S. (2018) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1719962115 · Cited by 138 · see citing works
Cai, Y., Schiffbauer, J. D., Hua, H., & Xiao, S. (2012) · Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology · doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2012.02.009 · Cited by 137 · see citing works
Self-citationA Phosphatocopid Crustacean with Appendages from the Lower Cambrian
Siveter, D. J., Williams, M., & Waloszek, D. (2001) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1061697 · Cited by 104 · see citing works
An integrated view of precambrian eumetazoan evolution
Davidson, E. H., & Erwin, D. H. (2009) · Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology · doi:10.1101/sqb.2009.74.042 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
Assessing the veracity of Precambrian ‘sponge’ fossils using in situ nanoscale analytical techniques
Muscente, A. D., Marc Michel, F., Dale, J. G., & Xiao, S. (2015) · Precambrian Research · doi:10.1016/j.precamres.2015.03.010 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
Self-citationEARLY CAMBRIAN METAZOAN EGGS, EMBRYOS, AND PHOSPHATIC MICROFOSSILS FROM NORTHWESTERN CANADA
PYLE, L. J., NARBONNE, G. M., NOWLAN, G. S., XIAO, S., & JAMES, N. P. (2006) · Journal of Paleontology · doi:10.1666/0022-3360(2006)80[811:ecmeea]2.0.co;2 · Cited by 46 · see citing works
Self-citationTerminal Developments in Ediacaran Embryology
Butterfield, N. J. (2011) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1216125 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
- Authors
- Xiao, S., & Knoll, A. H.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Venue
- Lethaia
- Publisher
- Scandinavian University Press
- Published
- 1999-09
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 219-240
- ISSN
- 0024-1164 (ISSN-L)
- 1502-3931
- OpenAlex
- W2114329528
- Cited by
- 231
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 13
- FWCI
- 4.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- nrs.harvard.edu
- Locations
- Lethaia (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
- Keywords
- Doushantuo Formation, Neoproterozoic, phosphatization, taphonomy, soft tissue preservation, acritarchs, animal embryos, collophane, diagenesis, new taxa
- MeSH terms
- Animals, China, Embryo, Nonmammalian, Fossils, Invertebrates, Microscopy, Electron, Scanning, Minerals, Paleontology, Phosphates, Geologic Sediments, Eukaryota
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
