Abstract The advent of biomineralizing metazoans in the terminal Ediacaran Age (ca. 550–539 Ma) represents a remarkable biological innovation in the history of life. As a poster child of this evolutionary episode, Cloudina is widely regarded as a weakly biomineralizing tubular fossil with a global distribution. Therefore, Cloudina can both inform the evolution of animal biomineralization and facilitate terminal Ediacaran stratigraphic correlation. However, this key taxon has not been fully described from the Yangtze Gorges area of South China, where classical terminal Ediacaran strata have been investigated extensively by paleontologists, stratigraphers, and geochemists. Here we document an assemblage of three-dimensionally silicified tubular fossils from siliceous dolostone of the terminal Ediacaran Baimatuo Member of the Dengying Formation in the Yangtze Gorges area, western Hubei Province, South China. The Baimatuo assemblage consists of Sinotubulites (which has been previously known in the Baimatuo Member), as well as Cloudina (including C. ningqiangensis, C. hartmannae, C. cf. carinata, and C. sp. indet.) and other unnamed tubular forms. This discovery adds to the diversity of early biomineralizing metazoans in the Yangtze Gorges area and facilitates the biostratigraphic correlation of the Cloudina–Sinotubulites co-occurrence assemblage in terminal Ediacaran strata.

中文翻译：

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华南扬子三峡地区埃迪卡拉纪末期管状化石Cloudina

摘要 埃迪卡拉纪末期（约 550-539 Ma）生物矿化后生动物的出现代表了生命史上一项非凡的生物创新。作为这一进化事件的典型代表，Cloudina 被广泛认为是一种具有全球分布的弱生物矿化管状化石。因此，Cloudina 既可以为动物生物矿化的演变提供信息，也可以促进埃迪卡拉纪末期地层相关性。然而，这一关键分类群尚未在华南扬子三峡地区得到完整描述，古生物学家、地层学家和地球化学家对该地区经典的埃迪卡拉纪末期地层进行了广泛的研究。在这里，我们记录了华南湖北省西部扬子三峡地区灯影组埃迪卡拉纪末白马沱段硅质白云岩的三维硅化管状化石组合。白马沱组合由白马沱段（白马沱段早有已知）、Cloudina（包括C. ningqiangensis、C. hartmannae、C. cf. carinata和C. sp. indet.）和其他未命名的管状岩组成。形式。这一发现增加了长江三峡地区早期生物矿化后生动物的多样性，并促进了埃迪卡拉纪末期地层 Cloudina-Sinotubulites 共生组合的生物地层对比。白马沱组合由白马沱段（白马沱段早有已知）、Cloudina（包括C. ningqiangensis、C. hartmannae、C. cf. carinata和C. sp. indet.）和其他未命名的管状岩组成。形式。这一发现增加了长江三峡地区早期生物矿化后生动物的多样性，并促进了埃迪卡拉纪末期地层 Cloudina-Sinotubulites 共生组合的生物地层对比。白马沱组合由白马沱段（白马沱段早有已知）、Cloudina（包括C. ningqiangensis、C. hartmannae、C. cf. carinata和C. sp. indet.）和其他未命名的管状岩组成。形式。这一发现增加了长江三峡地区早期生物矿化后生动物的多样性，并促进了埃迪卡拉纪末期地层 Cloudina-Sinotubulites 共生组合的生物地层对比。