FOSSIL APPENDICULARIANS IN THE EARLY CAMBRIAN

Abstract

The author found a kind of tadpole-like zooplankton fossils with organic coat in the marine facies black shales of Early Cambrian in South China. The fossil is identified to be fossil class paleoappendicularians. Discovery of these fossil animals in Early Cambrian oceans shows that at that time the biological evolution had already entered the transitional stage from invertebrate to vertebrate, which had a great significance in biological evolution. The occurrence of such fossil animals also provides the minerogenetic marks and exploration tracers of marine facies combustible organic ore deposits and vanadium ore deposits of black shale type.