我国南方伊迪卡拉(震旦)系陡山沱组页岩中,保存了以“庙河生物群”为代表的宏体碳质压膜化石群,以大量底栖固着的多细胞藻类为主,还包含推测的后生动物和海绵动物、可疑的遗迹化石等多门类生物化石,化石类型多样、分异显著,代表着新元古代“雪球”冰期之后和寒武纪早期后生动物大爆发前夕地球早期多细胞生物的一次大规模的进化辐射事件。本文通过比较湖北秭归庙河和贵州江口翁会两个典型产地的宏体化石优势属种的形态特征,以及两地所处的沉积古环境,分析探讨了这些优势类别与现生多细胞生物(包括红藻、褐藻和绿藻三大高级藻类)的亲缘关系。研究表明,寒武纪之前大约35~10Ma间,各门类多细胞藻类广泛发育,与后生动物的先驱分子构成独特的古生态群落。
The Miaohe Biota in shales of the Edicaran (Sinian) Doushantuo Formation at Miaohe, Zigui County, Hubei Province and Wenghui, Jiangkou County, Guizhou Province, South China, mainly consists of the carbonaceous compression macrofossils recognized as the diverse benthic assemblage including a large amount of multicellular algae and some forms of the putative metazoa, sponge and trace fossils. These fossils represent a large radiation of multicellular organisms between the Neoproterozoic glacial event and the Early Cambrian metazoan explosion. In analysis and comparison with the dominant taxa of macrofossils from the above two localities and the living multicellular organisms (including red algae, brown algae and green algae), as well as the sedimentary facies of two sites, we suggests the possible affinities of these taxa with the extant multicellular lifes and the interpretations of their ecological environments. Moreover, this study indicates that this Miaohe-type assemblage including plenty of the multicellular algae and a few of the metazoan ancestors construct a distinctive palaeo-community in environment of the Ediacaran South- China oceans during about 35-10 Ma before the Cambrian Period.