Year: 1997
Type: article
Abstract: The purpose of this review is to draw attention to the contribution that Nama sediments and fossils \nhave made, and potentially can make, to the ongoing debate about metazoan origins. Two important \nfeatures of this debate concern the nature and systematic position of the late Proterozoic "Ediacaran" \nfauna as well as the reasons for the sudden appearance in the fossil record of representatives of almost \nall known animal phyla, during the Early-Middle Cambrian radiation. An additional vexing question \nis the reason for the apparent absence of preserved representatives of ancestral metazoan lineages in \nProterozoic sediments, despite the fact that molecular evidence shows that such lineages had a long \nhis tory, prior to Cambrian times. Nama fossils and their enclosing sediments have made crucial \ncontributions to this debate and will surely continue to do so in the future.
Author: C. K. Brain
Language: English
Subfield: Paleontology
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2231938151