Lower Wheeler Shale, House Range (Cambrian of the United States)

Where: Utah (39.0° N, 113.0° W: paleocoordinates 4.7° S, 92.7° W)

• coordinate estimated from map

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Bolaspidella trilobite zone, Lower Wheeler Shale Formation, Delamaran (511.2 - 506.5 Ma)

• Listed as Middle Cambrian; Bolaspidella biozone

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: slope; poorly lithified, gray, silty, calcareous shale

• Bob Gaines (personal e-mail, 11/6/2002 and 2002 GSA) notes this is fully anoxic, but better oxygenated than other Wheeler settings; "silt" is a diagenetic calcite; different facies actually identical hemipelagic calcareous shales with variation in carbonate content. Listed as Lower slope, zone:5.5
• Light gray, platy parting, laminated, calcareous clayshale

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: soft parts

Primary reference: D. E. G. Briggs and R. A. Robison. 1984. Exceptionally preserved nontrilobite arthropods and Anomalocaris from the Middle Cambrian of Utah. University of Kansas Paleontological Contributions 111:1-23 [P. Novack-Gottshall/P. Hearn/J. Alroy]more details

Purpose of describing collection: biostratigraphic analysis

PaleoDB collection 77217: authorized by Phil Novack-Gottshall, entered by Paul Hearn on 02.01.2008

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

• Ptychagnostus atavus zone; Bolaspidella zone, Bathyuriscus fimbriatus subzone; soft-bodied biofacies of Bob Gaines
Show authors, comments, and common names
Aysheaia
  - Aysheaidae
Aysheaia sp.
Aysheaia sp. Walcott 1911
 Radiodonta - Anomalocarididae
Anomalocaris nathorsti
Deuteropoda
 Hymenocarina - Pseudoarctolepidae
Pseudoarctolepis sharpi
Pseudoarctolepis sharpi Brooks and Caster 1956
Artiopoda
 Vicissicaudata -
Sidneyia sp.
Sidneyia sp. Walcott 1911
Inarticulata
  -
Inarticulata indet.
Demospongiae
 Protomonaxonida - Choiidae
Choia sp.
Choia sp. Walcott 1920 demosponge