Back Cove (Ediacaran of Canada)

Where: Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada (48.5° N, 53.1° W: paleocoordinates 73.7° S, 89.0° E)

• coordinate estimated from map

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Fermeuse Formation, Ediacaran (635.0 - 541.0 Ma)

• No accurate radiometric dates have yet been published for successions from the Bonavista Peninsula, but the late Ediacaran units have been lithostratigraphically correlated with those of the Conception and St. John’s Groups from the Avalon Peninsula [37] (Fig. S1). If those correlations are correct, the widely cited date of 565±3 Ma obtained by U-Pb dating of zircons within a volcanic tuff from the Mistaken Point Formation (published without supporting isochrons in an abstract, ref. 24) would suggest that both the Back Cove locality and the Burnt Point paratype locality are younger than 565 Ma (Fig. S1).

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: submarine fan; lithified siltstone

• Ripple-cross-lamination in some of the sands, several erosional surfaces, and normally-graded bedding are consistent with the sedimentary packages recording distal turbidity currents or density flows deposited on a slope (as inferred by numerous slump deposits within the surrounding Fermeuse Formation), in a fore-arc basin setting.
• The holotype Haootia specimen locally lies within a succession of thin- to medium-bedded, fining-upwards cycles of fine sandstones and mudstones (Fig. S2), attributed to the lower Fermeuse Formation (St. John’s Group). Bed containing specimen is fine siltstone, the top 7.5 mm of which is a texturally-mottled hemi-pelagite

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: mold/impression, replaced with pyrite

Reposited in the OUM

• Specimen remains uncollected in the field according to provincial law. Plastotype held in collections of Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Primary reference: A. G. Liu, J. J. Matthews, L. R. Menon, D. McIlroy, and M. D. Braiser. 2014. Haootia quadriformis n. gen., n. sp., interpreted as a muscular cnidarian impression from the late Ediacaran period (approx. 560 Ma). Proceedings of the Royal Society B 281 [M. Clapham/M. Clapham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 160728: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Matthew Clapham on 27.08.2014

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Aspidella terranovica
  -
Aspidella terranovica Billings 1872
 Rangeomorpha -
Vinlandia sp. Brasier et al. 2012
Bradgatia sp. Boynton and Ford 1995
Primocandelabrum
  -
? Primocandelabrum sp. Hofmann et al. 2008
Haootia quadriformis
  -
Haootia quadriformis n. gen. n. sp.
Haootia quadriformis n. gen. n. sp. Liu et al. 2014
 Arboreomorpha -
Hiemalora
  -
Hiemalora sp. Fedonkin 1982