Where: Anhui, China (29.9° N, 118.1° E: paleocoordinates 24.3° N, 155.5° E)

• coordinate stated in text

• local area-level geographic resolution

When: Siphogonuchites triangularis–Paragloborilus subglobosus small shelly zone, Hetang Formation, Meishucunian (530.7 - 521.0 Ma)

• Because the stone coal beds of the Hetang Formation can be probably correlated with the black shales of the lower Shiyantuo Formation, which overlies the Watsonella crosbyi (=Heraultipegma yunnanensis) assemblage in the Dahai Member of the Zhujiaqing Formation, the radiometric date of 534.6F0.5 from Siberia can be taken as a maximum age of the stone coal beds.

•

•The minimum age of the stone coal beds is constrained by the Atdabanian–Botomian boundary, approximately 520 Ma (Bowring and Erwin, 1998; Landing et al., 1998; Jenkins et al., 2002). The stone coal beds are therefore broadly constrained to be between 535 and 520 Ma, making the sponge fossils reported in this paper among the earliest known articulated sponges (see also Steiner et al., 1993).

Environment/lithology: marginal marine; lithified coal

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils, microfossils

Preservation: replaced with pyrite

Reposited in the NIGPAS

Primary reference: S. Xiao, J. Hu, X. Yuan, R. L. Parsley, and R. Cao. 2005. Articulated sponges from the Lower Cambrian Hetang Formation in southern Anhui, South China: their age and implications for the early evolution of sponges. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 220:89-117 [P. Wagner/H. Street/P. Wagner]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 96370: authorized by Pete Wagner, entered by Hallie Street on 03.06.2010, edited by Sarah Tweedt

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)