SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES/NORTH MEXICO:
- Horodyski, R. J. 1991. Late Proterozoic megafossils from southern
Nevada. Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs 26(5):
A163.
- Langille, G. B. 1974. Problematic calcareous fossils from the
Stirling Quartzite, Funeral Mountains, Inyo County, California.
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 6: 204-205.
- McMenamin, M. A. S.1996. Ediacaran biota from Sonora, Mexico.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 93: 4990-4993.
Runnegar, B. Personal communication, 1996.
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Recently, McMenamin (1996) documented a biota of Ediacara-type fossils from
the Clemente Formation of Sonora, Mexico. I did not include these forms,
for the same reason that I did not include the fossils from the
intertillites of northern Canada: they predate the majority of Ediacaran
biotas by at least 50 million years. In fact, its discoverer states
that it is the oldest Ediacaran biota of all. While the problem of loose age
constraints on many of these biotas introduces unavoidable noise into the
data, including obviously and markedly diachronous biotas would only have
exacerbated the problem. Note, however, that both this paper and Horodyski's
abstract report forms referable to Ernietta; including McMenamin's
fossils would not have altered the results of the analysis substantially.
Langille (1974) describe calcareous cone-shaped fossils from Late Precambrian
rocks of the Death Valley region in eastern California. These do fall within
the appropriate time period, and I believe them sufficiently different from
Cloudina to warrant designation as a new taxon.
NORTH CAROLINA:
- Cloud, P. E., Wright, J., and Glover, L. 1976. Traces of animal
life from 620-million-year-old rocks in North Carolina. American Scientist
64 (July-August): 396-406.
- Gibson, G. G., Teeter, S. A., and Fedonkin, M. A. 1984. Ediacarian fossils
from the Carolina slate belt, Stanly County, North Carolina. Geology 12:
387-390.
- Seilacher, A. 1993. Early multicellular life: Late Proterozoic fossils
and the Cambrian explosion. In: Bengtson, S. (ed.) Early Life on Earth.
Nobel Symposium No. 84. Columbia University Press, New York. pp. 389-400.
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Cloud et al. (1976) described Vermiforma antiqua as long, tubular,
wormlike organisms; Glaessner (1984) suggested that they might be
sabelliditids. I did not include them in the analysis, as they appear to
predate the Ediacaran biotas considerably. Seilacher (1993) figured forms
called "Vendospica diplograptiformis," which are interpreted as either
impressions of colonial organisms resembling graptolites, or as tool marks
left by such organisms (the exact interpretation is not clear from the
paper.) The fossil is in need of
formal description (note that "Vendospica diplograptiformis" has no official
nomenclatural standing at this time).